Because not all cancer patients respond to a leading type of cancer immunotherapy drug, known as an immune checkpoint inhibitor, scientists explored whether adding janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors – drugs that treat chronic inflammation – could help. In two separate clinical studies, researchers found that adding JAK inhibitors did improve patients' responses to cancer checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapies. "Aside from the exciting findings of the early phase trials reported by [both groups], they provide a great deal of data with complex analyses of immune responses," write Massimo Gadina and John O'Shea in a related Perspective.
"It will be exciting to see how such sophisticated data might be used in the clinic and to inform research." Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) work by blocking checkpoint proteins on T cells that otherwise prevent the immune system from targeting and killing cancer cells. ICIs have substantially improved the treatment of some types of cancers.
However, not all patients respond to these immunotherapies. And cancer patients often have chronic inflammation and immunosuppression, which can limit ICI treatment response. In two independent clinical studies, researchers investigated whether using JAK inhibitors or jakinibs, which prevent inflammation from inside cells, could improve antitumor responses of anti-PD-1 ICI immunotherapy in cancer patients.
Divij Mathew and colleagues conducted a phase II clinical trial to investigate the use of the JAK1 inhi.