Cancer treatment may be an option to treat severe covid-19

A treatment known as “Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor”, used to treat cancer patients, is being tested as a treatment for severe disease by a team of Brazilian scientists from the Campinas State University Institute of Biology (IB-Unicamp) and Uruguayans . cases Covid-19.

The studied therapy, which reactivates the immune system and won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2018, works against a mechanism that causes T lymphocyte immune cells in the human body to stop acting after a while in inflammation that flares up.

This is undesirable in the case of severe covid-19 patients who need to be admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) after contracting SARS-CoV-2.

Although it is a costly treatment, according to the researchers, with the decline in the number of critically ill patients worldwide, the alternative, if safe, may be viable. Initial tests were performed on mice and later on cells from severe COVID-19 patients, both in the laboratory.

The results showed that treatment with a PD-1 inhibitor in mice (checkpoint This causes the T lymphocytes to stop working before the disease resolves) was able to restore T lymphocyte function.

Experiments were then performed with healthy cells infected with SARS-CoV-2 and cells from intensive care patients. Only the latter benefited from administration of atezolizumab, the PD-1 inhibitor drug used in the study.

According to the article, this is because patients with severe cases exacerbate activation of inflammation, leading to a depletion profile and immune dysfunction.

However, the researchers caution that the results still need to be carefully monitored, as studies on cancer patients who were using the therapy before contracting Covid-19 showed no benefit or resulted in a negative association.

More studies are needed to better understand the effects of the treatment, particularly against Covid-19.

Matter: Science Advances – https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abn6545.