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| Northwestern Medicine |
Viruses don’t often come with silver linings, and infections don’t generally lead to positive health effects. But during the pandemic, some doctors anecdotally began noticing that some people with cancer who got very sick with COVID-19 saw their tumors shrink or grow more slowly.
“We didn’t know if it was real, because these patients were so sick,” says Dr. Ankit Bharat, chief of thoracic surgery at Northwestern University. “Was it because the immune system was so triggered by COVID-19 that it also started to kill cancer cells? What was it?”
Bharat and his team decided conduct a study to find out if the seeming “benefit” of COVID-19 for these cancer patients could teach them anything about a potential new way to fight cancer—or if it was simply a red herring. They published their findings Nov. 15 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Using a combination of human cells and animal models, Bharat and his team found that in the presence of SARS-CoV-2, immune cells called monocytes act differently than they normally do. Typically, monocytes, as part of the immune system, cruise the bloodstream and alert other immune cells to the presence of foreign cells or pathogens; some monocytes can attract cancer-killing immune cells to tumors, but others aren't as effective in doing so. That's because in some cases, cancer cells can co-opt monocytes —“like a demon summoning forces,” says Bharat—and form an immune wall protecting the tumor from being discovered and attacked by additional immune defenses.
But during a COVID-19 infection, SARS-CoV-2 attaches itself to these monocytes, and by doing so reverts them back to doing their original job: defending the body against cancer. “They look the same, and are still recruited to the tumor sites, but instead of protecting the cancer cells, they start to bring specific natural killer cells—which are the body’s main cells that kill cancer—to these tumor sites,” says Bharat. “So where before the cancer was brainwashing the monocytes into protecting the cancer, the virus now helps them to attack cancer.” --->READ MORE HERE
Scientists have discovered a surprising silver lining of COVID-19 infection.
A new study by researchers at Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, revealed a correlation between COVID-19 infection and cancer regression.
Though doctors at Northwestern University warned that the research is still in early stages, they’re hopeful that more tests could lead to new treatments in the future.
The team observed that the RNA from the SARS-CoV-2 virus can trigger the development of anti-cancer immune cells.
Called “inducible nonclassical monocytes (I-NCMs),” these immune cells showed the potential to attack cancer cells, opening up new possibilities for treatment. Rare compared to other types of monocytes, I-NCMs multiply when inflammation materializes, as it does during COVID-19 infection.
“We found that the same cells activated by severe COVID-19 could be induced with a drug to fight cancer, and we specifically saw a response with melanoma, lung, breast and colon cancer in the study,” said study author Ankit Bharat, MD, chief of thoracic surgery and director of the Canning Thoracic Institute.
“While this is still in the early stages and the effectiveness was only studied in preclinical animal models, it offers hope that we might be able to use this approach to benefit patients with advanced cancers that have not responded to other treatments.”
Creating this subset of immune cells begins when the RNA from COVID-19 sends a signal to the immune system that turns normal monocytes, a type of white blood cell, into I-NCMs. These can spread into the blood vessels and the surrounding tissue where tumors develop, a dual capability that distinguishes them from most other immune cells. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
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