New Delhi:

A high profile global initiative to tackle cancer called the ‘Cancer Moonshot’ will be announced on the sidelines of the Quad Summit. Ahead of that an India cancer specific cancer genome atlas has been released. Till date, all cancer treatments were based on western datasets, say the experts who made the cancer atlas. This had led to complications. India has the third-highest number of cancer cases after the US and China.

The release of the Cancer Genome Atlas of India is timely since according to estimates by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), in India, the incidence of cancer cases is likely to increase from 1.46 million in 2022 to 1.57 million in 2025.

The Quad Summit to be held in Philadelphia will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. While global security will be high on the agenda, the menace of cancer is also not being ignored.

Cancer Moonshot is a special programme spearheaded by Mr Biden and the US First Lady. The White House says it is building a world where the word cancer loses its power, a diagnosis isn’t a death sentence, and to prevent cancer before it starts.

“We catch cancer early so people live longer and healthier lives, and patients and families don’t have to navigate their cancer journey alone. To prevent more than four million cancer deaths by 2047 and to improve the experience of people who are touched by cancer,” it said.

The Indian Cancer Genome Atlas (ICGA) is aimed at transforming cancer research and treatment for the Indian population. Historically, cancer treatments in India have been based on western data sets. However, cancers in Indian patients can differ significantly at the molecular level.

The ICGA’s mission is to create Indian-specific datasets to help researchers and clinicians develop personalised treatment protocols. This new open-access portal represents a monumental step in revolutionising cancer research, specifically for Indian patients.

Currently, the platform consists of data from 50 breast cancer patients, with plans to expand to over 500 patients in the coming year. Experts suggest that in 2022, India reported 1.92 lakh cases of breast cancer, constituting 26.6 per cent of all cancer cases, along with 98,337 deaths, accounting for 13.7 per cent of all cancer-related fatalities.

The Indian Cancer Genome Atlas (ICGA) is a national initiative focused on mapping cancers across India, supported by a foundation formed by over 50 clinicians, researchers, and data analysts. Its mission is to enhance cancer diagnosis and treatment for Indian patients and contribute to the global understanding of cancer biology.

The open access dataset will drive transformative breakthroughs in cancer treatment, said professor Shekhar C Mande, former Director General, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and currently senior professor at Savitribai Phule Pune University.

“Making this invaluable cancer data publicly accessible marks a pivotal step in accelerating scientific discoveries and enhancing patient outcomes. By openly sharing this data, we are empowering researchers, clinicians, and innovators to collaborate, explore new frontiers, and drive transformative breakthroughs in cancer treatment,” Mr Mande said.

India uniquely has a high burden of cancers related to the digestive system; oral and lung cancer, mostly related to tobacco use; cervical cancer is increasing and breast cancer are all on the rise.

In the last few decades, scientists have finally learned to harness the immune system to successfully treat cancer. Image for Representation.
| Photo Credit: Freepik

In the last few decades, scientists have finally learned to harness the immune system to successfully treat cancer. Although doctors often use immunotherapy drugs, another type of treatment uses patient’s cells to treat their own cancers.

Car-T therapy, short for “chimeric antigen receptor T-cell”, is a cutting-edge treatment that reprogrammes a patient’s immune cells to fight their cancer. This innovative approach involves taking T-cells, a type of white blood cell that plays a crucial role in the immune system, from a patient and modifying them in a laboratory to better recognise and attack cancer cells.

These enhanced T-cells are then multiplied and infused back into the patient, where they seek out and destroy cancer cells. Lots of data shows that in difficult-to-treat lymphomas, a type of cancer, patients can do so well.

In November 2023, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced an investigation into this celebrated cancer treatment. They were looking into whether Car-T therapy might be causing new cancers in some patients who had undergone the treatment. This was a significant concern given the therapy’s reputation as a revolutionary cancer-fighting strategy.

Initially, the FDA mentioned that it had observed 20 cases where patients developed new immune-cell cancers, such as lymphomas or leukaemias, which are types of blood cell cancer, after receiving Car-T therapy. This prompted questions about who these patients were, how many such cases existed and what other treatments they might have received before Car-T therapy.

By March 2024, the FDA had documented 33 such cases among around 30,000 treated patients. Consequently, all Car-T therapies now carry a boxed warning about the potential risk of developing secondary cancers. The European Medicines Agency also started its own investigation into the matter.

Despite these concerns, it is still unclear whether the new cancers are directly caused by the Car-T cells or whether other factors are involved. It is also important to note that these cancers are very rare – as data published this month shows.

Many cancer treatments come with a risk of secondary malignancies and, of course, the cancer returning. And patients receiving Car-T therapy often have had several other treatments that could also contribute to the risk. Researchers are now working to determine if Car-T therapy is a contributing factor or the primary cause of these new cancers.

Car-T therapy was initially used for patients with no other treatment options, but it has since been approved as a second-line treatment for certain types of blood cancers, like lymphoma and multiple myeloma. Scientists are also exploring its potential for treating solid tumours including hard to treat brain cancers, autoimmune diseases, ageing, HIV and other conditions.

The process of creating Car-T cells involves using viruses to insert new genetic material into T-cells. These viruses, called retroviruses, are engineered to carry the gene for a chimeric antigen receptor (Car) into the T-cells.

Massive benefits

While these retroviruses are modified to be safe, there is always a risk that the new genetic material could disrupt other important genes and potentially lead to cancer – a phenomenon known as “insertional mutagenesis”. This means new genetic material is added to a cell.

This risk isn’t new. About 20 years ago, gene therapy treatments for severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome using similar retroviruses led to leukaemia in some patients. As a result, scientists have worked to improve the safety of these viral vectors. The FDA now requires thorough testing to ensure that the viruses used in Car-T therapy cannot replicate and cause harm.

Despite these findings, the most important thing to emphasise is that secondary cancers remain rare and these cell therapies can have massive benefits in very sick people.

The new review of patients treated with Car-T therapies at various centres found that only a small percentage developed secondary cancers, and most were not the type directly linked to the Car-T treatment. This suggests that while there is a risk, it is relatively low compared to the immediate threat posed by the patient’s existing cancer.

Medical professionals now inform patients about the potential but rare risk of secondary cancers when discussing Car-T therapy. For most patients, especially those with advanced cancers, the potential benefits of Car-T therapy far outweigh these risks.

As mentioned, Car-T therapy is also being investigated for other applications beyond cancer. For instance, it has shown promise in treating autoimmune diseases such as lupus and even in preventing organ transplant rejection. The potential uses for Car-T cells are continually expanding, offering hope for treating a wide range of diseases.

Ultimately, while the risk of secondary cancers from Car-T therapy is a serious consideration, the benefits for many patients are significant and far outweigh this small risk. Research will continue to refine these treatments and improve their safety.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

New Delhi:

Poor lifestyle choices with regular consumption of ultra-processed food, and a sedentary lifestyle are increasing cancer cases among people under 40 years of age in India, said doctors on Sunday.

Several factors are contributing to the rise in cancer cases among younger people in India.

One of the primary reasons is increased consumption of processed foods, tobacco, and alcohol, sedentary lifestyles, obesity, and stress.

Environmental pollution is another critical factor.

India’s cities are plagued by high levels of pollution, which has been linked to various types of cancer.

Air and water pollution expose individuals to carcinogenic substances, significantly increasing their cancer risk.

“Ultra-processed foods and sedentary lifestyles are emerging as significant contributors to the rising cancer rates among young Indians.

“The high intake of these foods, laden with unhealthy additives, combined with physical inactivity, is creating a health crisis,” Dr. Rahul Bhargava, Director and head of the Department of Haematology and BMT at Fortis Memorial Research Institute told IANS.

“It’s imperative to adopt healthier dietary habits and an active lifestyle to curb this alarming trend,” he added.

According to a recent study by Cancer Mukt Bharat Foundation, a Delhi-based non-profit foundation, 20 per cent of cancer cases in India are now being diagnosed in people below 40 years of age.

The study shows that men constitute 60 per cent of these young cancer patients, while women make up the remaining 40 per cent.

The gender disparity may be due to higher rates of tobacco use, occupational exposure, and lifestyle choices among men in India.

“In our country, escalating rates of obesity, change in dietary habits, specifically the increase in consumption of ultra-processed food, and sedentary lifestyles are associated with higher cancer rates,” said Dr. Ashish Gupta, principal investigator and senior oncologist at Unique Hospital Cancer Center, Delhi, told IANS.

The doctors called for the urgent need for lifestyle interventions to combat the rising cancer rates among young Indians. Dr. Ashish, also heading Cancer Mukt Bharat Campaign in India, emphasised the importance of a “combined effort from the government, healthcare professionals, and the community to tackle the rising cancer rates among young adults”.

“Policies promoting clean air and water, regular physical activity, and access to nutritious food must be prioritised. Additionally, we must invest in better healthcare infrastructure to ensure timely diagnosis and treatment,” he said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Mumbai:

Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal’s wife Anita Goyal passed away on Thursday morning after suffering from the final stage of cancer.

Anita Goyal is survived by her husband and two children, Namrata and Nivaan Goyal.

According to reports, she passed away around 3 a.m. and Naresh Goyal was at their Mumbai residence.

As executive vice president, Anita was part of operations at the company.

Naresh Goyal, himself suffering from multiple health issues, sought interim bail from the Bombay High Court earlier this month on humanitarian grounds to be with his wife.

He was nabbed on September 1, 2023, in connection with a money-laundering case.

He is currently in judicial custody and lodged at the Arthur Road Central Jail (ARCJ).

In the bail plea, Naresh Goyal had claimed that he did not siphon off loan amounts for personal benefits, as alleged by the ED in the Canara Bank loan of Rs 538.62 crore given to the Jet Airways group.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Brain cancers remain among the most challenging tumors to treat. They often don’t respond to traditional treatments because many chemotherapies are unable to penetrate the protective barrier around the brain. Other treatments like radiation and surgery can leave patients with lifelong debilitating side effects.

As a result, brain cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death in children. Brain tumors in children frequently do not respond to treatments developed for adults, likely due to the fact that pediatric brain cancers are not as well-studied as adult brain cancers. There is an urgent need to develop new treatments specific to children.

We developed a new messenger-RNA, or mRNA, cancer vaccine, described in newly published research, that can deliver treatments more effectively in children who have brain cancer and teach their immune systems to fight back.

How do cancer vaccines work?

The immune system is a complex network of cells, tissues and organs whose primary function is to continuously surveil the body for threats posed by foreign invaders – pathogens that damage tissues and make you sick. It accomplishes this by recognizing antigens, or abnormal proteins or molecules, on pathogens. T cells that recognize these antigens seek out and destroy the pathogens.

Your immune system also protects you from domestic threats like cancer. Over time, your cells sustain DNA damage from either internal or external stressors, leading to mutations. The proteins and molecules produced from mutated DNA look quite different from the ones cells typically produce, so your immune system can recognize them as antigens. Cancer develops when cells accumulate mutations that enable them to continue to grow and divide while simultaneously going undetected by the immune system.

In 1991, scientists identified the first tumor antigen, helping lay the framework for modern-day immunotherapy. Since then, researchers have identified many new tumor antigens, facilitating the development of cancer vaccines. Broadly, cancer vaccines deliver tumor antigens into the body to teach the immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells that display those antigens. Although all cancer vaccines conceptually work very similarly, they each significantly vary in the way they are developed and the number and combination of antigens they carry.

One of the biggest differences among cancer vaccines is how they are created. Some vaccines use protein fragments, or peptides, of tumor antigens that are directly given to patients. Other vaccines use viruses reengineered to express cancer antigens. Even more complex are vaccines where a patient’s own immune cells are collected and trained to recognize cancer antigens in a laboratory before being delivered back to the patient.

Currently, there is a lot of excitement and focus among researchers on developing mRNA-based cancer vaccines. Whereas DNA is the blueprint of which proteins to make, mRNA is a copy of the blueprint that tells cells how to build these proteins. Thus, researchers can use mRNA to create blueprint copies of potential antigens.

mRNA cancer vaccines

The COVID-19 pandemic brought significant attention to the potential of using mRNA-based vaccines to stimulate the immune system and provide protection against the antigens they encode for. But researchers have been investigating the use of mRNA vaccines for treating various cancers since before the pandemic.

Our teamof scientists in the Brain Tumor Immunotherapy Program at University of Florida has spent the past 10 years developing and optimizing mRNA vaccines to treat brain cancer.

Cancer vaccines have faced significant challenges. One key hurdle is that these vaccines may not always trigger a strong enough immune response to eradicate the cancer completely. Moreover, tumors are not made up of one type of cancer cell, but rather a complex mix of cancer cells that each harbors its own unique cocktail of mutations.

Our cancer vaccine seeks to address these issues in a number of ways.

First, we designed our vaccines by using the RNA of a patients’ own cancer cells as a template for the mRNA inside our nanoparticles. We also packaged our cancer vaccine inside of nanoparticles made up of specialized lipids, or fat molecules. We maximized the amount of mRNA packaged within each nanoparticle by sandwiching them between lipid layers like the layers of an onion. In this way, we increase the likelihood that the mRNA molecules in our nanoparticles produce enough tumor antigens from that patient’s cancer to activate an immune response.

Also, instead of injecting nanoparticles into the skin, muscle or directly into the tumor, as is commonly done for many therapeutic cancer vaccines, our mRNA nanoparticles are injected into the bloodstream. From there, they travel to organs throughout the body involved in the immune response to teach the body to fight against the cancer. By doing so, we’ve found that the immune system launches a near immediate and powerful response. Within six hours of receiving the vaccine, there is a significant increase in the amount of blood markers connected to immune activation.

Looking to the future

Our mRNA-based vaccines are currently undergoing early-phase clinical trials to treat real patients with brain cancer.

We administered our mRNA-based vaccine to four adult patients with glioblastoma who had relapsed after previous treatment. All patients survived several months longer than the expected average survival at this advanced stage of illness. We expect to treat children with a type of brain tumor called pediatric high-grade glioma by the end of the year.

Importantly, mRNA vaccines can be developed to treat any kind of cancer, including childhood brain tumors. Our Pediatric Cancer Immunotherapy Initiative focuses on developing new immune-based therapies for children afflicted with cancer. After developing an mRNA vaccine for glioma in chidren, we will expand to treat other kinds of pediatric brain cancers like medulloblastoma and potentially treat other kinds of cancers like skin cancer and bone cancer.

We are hopeful that mRNA-based vaccines may lead to more children being cured of their brain tumors.

Christina von Roemeling, Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery, University of Florida and John Ligon, Assistant Professor of Hematology, University of Florida

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A self-proclaimed “tumour research institute” in China is under investigation after a woman exposed how her cancer-stricken mother was duped into paying a staggering 200,000 yuan (approximately Rs 22.76 lakh) for treatments that include bloodletting and even applying cement to her skin.

According to South China Morning Post (SCMP), the woman, surnamed Wang, learned that her mother had been diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer at the end of 2021. Soon after diagnosis, the two women were introduced to a traditional Chinese medicine doctor in Wuhan, who claimed to specialise in treating cancer. They travelled to meet the man, surnamed Yu, at his Dongyusanbao Tumour Research Institute, where he told them he had invented a medicine that could kill cancer cells.

According to Ms Wang, Mr Yu went to great lengths to convince the two women, showcasing what appeared to be credible patent documents and prestigious awards certificates for his cancer treatment. 

Filled with hope, Ms Wang’s mother immediately purchased the first batch of liquid medication from Mr Yu at a cost of 20,000 yuan (US$2,700), which he assured was a simple oral remedy. Over the course of a year, Ms Wang said she and her mother flew to Wuhan from their home in northeastern Liaoning province six times. This journey took a severe financial toll, with the total expenditure racing over 200,000 yuan. 

Moreover, in addition to giving the elderly woman oral medication, Mr Yu also made dozens of injections into her breasts to make her lose blood, Ms Wang said, as per the outlet. He bizarrely also told the woman to apply a mixture of cement and lime skin under her armpits, claiming that it would aid in shrinking the cancerous lumps. 

“He told my mother to apply cement mixed with lime on the skin under her armpits, saying this could help shrink lumps. My mother followed his instructions but her skin festered after doing it for two months,” Ms Wang said.

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However, in April this year, Ms Wang’s mother’s condition deteriorated and local doctors told her that the cancer cells had spread across her body. But Mr Yu insisted that was normal and even told them not to worry. He even convinced the woman to continue drinking his medicine. However, this ultimately led to the mother’s death in June, Ms Wang said. 

According to SCMP, Mr Yu later confessed that neither he nor his institute have any medical qualifications. “I am not practising medicine. I just sold them health-enhancing products. My method of bloodletting is aimed at promoting good health, it is not acupuncture,” Mr Yu said. He also confessed that the certificates and documents he had shown the two women were, in fact, bought online for a few thousand yuan. The authorities are now still investigating the bizarre case.

New Delhi:

 Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Wednesday said of the 90 medicines for cancer, India gives out 42 at the cheapest rates.

He was speaking at the inauguration of “Sanjeevani: United Against Cancer”, a joint initiative of the Federal Bank Hormis Memorial Foundation, News18 Network and Tata Trusts.

“We are increasing (the number of) cancer hospitals and tertiary care facilities. Our approach towards the health sector is holistic. We have increased (the number of) MBBS and post-graduate medical seats and colleges, and created medical educational resources. The Ayushman Bharat health infrastructure mission is working towards it. We launched the pharma policy on Tuesday. We are the pharmacy of the world in generic medicines,” Mr Mandaviya said.

Health can never be a political subject nor commercial, he said, adding that it is “seva” (service) for India.

“With time, the pattern of diseases changes. It is important to have a holistic approach towards the sector. Health can never be a political subject. We merged health with development from 2014. Not as a token, but a total gesture. Instead of just opening dispensaries, we focused on making health services accessible to all,” the minister said.

The country belongs to all its citizens and the responsibility for its well-being lies with each individual, he said, adding, “It was this shared responsibility and collective effort that enabled the nation to effectively combat the challenges posed by COVID-19.” The primary goal of “Sanjeevani” is to promote awareness, foster discussions about the silent cancer epidemic and address the common fears associated with the disease, he noted.

“The Sanjeevani initiative will lead to discussions and deliberations. Send a note on it to us, so we can track the suggestions coming from people. The (Narendra) Modi government believes in stakeholder consultation. Public partnership is integral to India’s health model. Share your ideas with us, so we can fight the diseases,” the minister said.

He acknowledged the crucial role played by the country’s 10 lakh “ASHA behen”, each serving a population of 1,000, and highlighted their role in collecting vital healthcare information through family visits.

Mr Mandaviya discussed the government’s approach to cancer care, emphasising health and wellness screenings at district-level hospitals and fee waivers for impoverished patients. He noted that cancer medicines are available at non-profit prices due to India’s fixed trade margin, with a focus on making healthcare more affordable and accessible.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)