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| Image credit FDA Healthnews.com |
CANCER DIGEST – June 26, 2020 – New research indicates that taking vitamin D supplements may help prevent one of the potentially serious side effects of a revolutionary form of anti-cancer therapy, called checkpoint inhibitors, a new study shows.
The findings are published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society (ACS).
Immune checkpoint inhibitors are a new class of drugs that work by blocking proteins, called checkpoint proteins from binding with their partner proteins. Checkpoint proteins’ role is to prevent an immune response from being so strong that it destroys healthy cells in the body.
"Vitamin D supplementation should be tested further to determine if it could be a safe, easily accessible, and cost-effective approach," lead author Osama Rahma, MD, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School said in a press release, "towards preventing immunotherapy's gastrointestinal toxicity and extending the effectiveness of immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment in cancer patients."
In the study, 213 patients with melanoma received immune checkpoint inhibitors between 2011 and 2017. Thirty-seven (17 percent) of these patients developed colitis. Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a disease that causes inflammation and sores, in the lining of the rectum and colon. Sixty-six patients in the study (31 percent) took vitamin D supplements before starting treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors.
After allowing for other factors, the researchers found that patients who took vitamin D had 65 percent lower odds of developing colitis. These findings were validated in another group of 169 patients, of whom 49 (29 percent) developed colitis. In this validation group, use of vitamin D was linked with 54 percent lower odds of developing colitis.
Immune checkpoint inhibitors are a new class of drugs that work by blocking proteins, called checkpoint proteins from binding with their partner proteins. Checkpoint proteins’ role is to prevent an immune response from being so strong that it destroys healthy cells in the body.
Cancer cells use this mechanism to evade killer T-cells, the immune system cells that kill tumor cells. Immune checkpoint inhibitors, such as Keytruda®, or Opdivo® prevents the “off” signal from being sent, allowing the T cells to recognize and kill the cancer cells.
"Vitamin D supplementation should be tested further to determine if it could be a safe, easily accessible, and cost-effective approach," lead author Osama Rahma, MD, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School said in a press release, "towards preventing immunotherapy's gastrointestinal toxicity and extending the effectiveness of immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment in cancer patients."
In the study, 213 patients with melanoma received immune checkpoint inhibitors between 2011 and 2017. Thirty-seven (17 percent) of these patients developed colitis. Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a disease that causes inflammation and sores, in the lining of the rectum and colon. Sixty-six patients in the study (31 percent) took vitamin D supplements before starting treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors.
After allowing for other factors, the researchers found that patients who took vitamin D had 65 percent lower odds of developing colitis. These findings were validated in another group of 169 patients, of whom 49 (29 percent) developed colitis. In this validation group, use of vitamin D was linked with 54 percent lower odds of developing colitis.
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