Through this blog post I’ll be sharing with you some recent findings in medicine that can prove to be groundbreaking in the near future.
As said by Ronald Reagan, “There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits to human intelligence, imagination and wonder.”
Rightfully so, here we will see what we have achieved in recent times through sheer work and copious trials .
1. Is Alzheimer’s a problem for superheroes too?
Here are the latest developments in its diagnosis:
You’ll be amazed to find out that Chris Hemsworth who plays Thor has recently been found to have a predisposition to Alzheimer’s disease. Here are the advancements in its diagnosis –Tau aggregates are a pathological hallmark of Alzheimer's disease that is closely linked both spatially and temporally to emergence of neurodegeneration.
The development of affordable and practical blood-based biomarkers for tau pathology may revolutionize research into Alzheimer's disease. In contrast to traditional CSF indicators of tau pathology, new phosphorylated tau (p-tau) assays have been developed that more accurately indicate the amount of tau tangles.
With multiple phase 1 and phase 2 trials of tau post-translational modification currently underway, the field of anti-tau therapy is fast changing. Such clinical studies may be improved by using neuroimaging and biofluid tau indicators, which can be used to improve participant selection and provide proof of target engagement.
Plasma concentrations of two distinct proteins,
p-taugmented cathepsin and tau, may be effective screening markers for those who have amyloid and Alzheimer's disease tau pathology. There is some evidence in favor of using the more widely used p-dupau217 for the differential diagnosis of FTLD syndromes as well as the diagnosis of Alzheimer's.
The high cost of tau-PET, partial sensitivity to identify early-stage Alzheimer's disease
pathology, and off-target tracer binding are significant obstacles to be overcome. Future
research should concentrate on proving the precision of blood-based markers like p-tau in terms of diagnosis and prognosis. It is necessary to do extensive head-to-head comparison studies to identify the tau biomarker that performs well in various therapeutic settings.
2. A single drug can treat cancer? Here’s what you need to
know....
A humanized monoclonal antibody called Dostarlimab is being developed as a PD-1
receptor antagonist to treat various malignancies, including endometrial cancer, fallopian tube cancer, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, peritoneal cancer, cancers
of the head and neck, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), small cell lung cancer (SCLC), squamous cell cancer (SCC), and malignant melanoma.
PD-1 is an immune checkpoint receptor expressed by T-cells that has been shown to suppress cancer-specific immune responses. A mouse hybridoma was used to create the humanised IgG4 monoclonal antibody Dostarlimab. It binds to and inhibits PD-1, stops PD-L1 and PD-L2 from interacting with the receptor, and activates T cells to restore immunological function. Dostarlimab is authorised in the USA [1, 2] and the EU [3, 4] for the treatment of adult patients with recurrent or advanced endometrial cancer that is mismatch repair-deficient (dMMR).
Numerous immune-related side effects have been linked to Dostarlimab use, which may
necessitate stopping the drug temporarily or permanently.
Although immune checkpoint inhibitors have demonstrated potent therapeutic action in a number of tumor subtypes, gynecologic malignancies have been limited with them. Since the development of a molecular subclassification method for endometrial cancer, research on immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy has focused on particular subgroups predictive for response, in particular the microsatellite instability hypermutated/DNA mismatch repair-deficient subtype (EC). Dostarlimab has demonstrated early indications of therapeutic effectiveness and a tolerable safety profile, especially in patients with microsatellite instability-hypermutated/DNA mismatch repair-deficient EC.
Although immune checkpoint inhibitors have demonstrated potent therapeutic action in a number of tumor subtypes, gynecologic malignancies have been limited with them. Since the development of a molecular subclassification method for endometrial cancer, research on immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy has focused on particular subgroups predictive for response, in particular the microsatellite instability hypermutated/DNA mismatch repair-deficient subtype (EC).Dostarlimab has demonstrated early indications of therapeutic effectiveness and a tolerable safety profile, especially in patients with microsatellite instability-hypermutated/DNA mismatch repair-deficient EC.
A study which began in 2016 and continued over a course of 3 years with the primary objective being assessment of antitumor activity and safety of the drug in mismatch repair endometrial cancer revealed that for patients with inadequate mismatch
mutation repair endometrial malignancies following prior platinum-based chemotherapy, dostarlimab was linked with clinically significant and long-lasting
antitumor efficacy with an acceptable safety profile. The side effects experienced by the patient may be less severe eg. bladder pain, constipation, cloudy urine, etc. or of more severe magnitude eg. painful lymphadenitis, stiff neck, photophobia and even
slight paralysis.
Treatment of endometrial cancer currently is given via simultaneous use of radiation therapy and chemotherapy which includes drugs like doxorubicin, cisplatin and paclitaxel. Inspite of the promising results of dostarlimab, the drug is fairly new and is not in use in most of the cancer cases around the world but has the potential of being the breakthrough drug used in its treatment in the coming years.
Dostarlimab received its first approval on 22 April 2021 for the treatment of adult patients with mismatch repair deficient (dMMR) recurrent or advanced endometrial cancer in the USA.
3. Again, stem cells are the answer now for multiple sclerosis :
A chronic inflammatory illness of the central nervous system with an autoimmune origin, multiple sclerosis (MS) is mediated by activated T lymphocytes with emerging evidence of a significant role for B cells and cells of the innate immune system. It is believed that a complicated combination between several genetic and environmental variables is what causes the condition.
AHSCT, or autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, is thought to be a cutting-edge method for treating MS patients who are resistant to disease-modifying treatments. AHSCT combined with a low density conditioning regimen was found to be an effective candidate method in many clinical trials for the treatment of MS. It is known that a number of molecular and cellular pathways contribute to the immune system's resetting in MS patients after the AHSCT infusion. These processes contribute to the regeneration of the immune system and the reduction of auto-reactive cells. The outcomes of various research show that AHSCT improves MS patients' quality of life.
Numerous factors are known to have an impact on the success rate of AHSCT in MS patients. AHSCT treatment has been proven to have a stronger effect on MS patients under the age of 40 who have had the disease for a brief period of time. Additionally, this treatment was more effective for people with relapsing remitting MS (RRMS) than for those with progressive MS (PMS).
In numerous clinical trials for the treatment of MS, the combination of AHSCT with a low density conditioning regimen was found to be an effective candidate technique. Numerous molecular and cellular pathways are known to have a role in the immune system's recovery in MS patients following the AHSCT infusion. These procedures aid in the elimination of auto-reactive cells and immune system renewal. We discuss a variety of clinical and biological aspects of employing AHSCT to treat MS symptoms in the review that follows.
The outcomes of the clinical studies demonstrated that accurate MS patient selection criteria created favourable conditions for AHSCT effectiveness. According to the molecular study, AHSCT restored the expression profile to that of a healthy state. Apoptotic pathways and several cytokines were shown to be involved in the pathophysiology of MS in various investigations. A better understanding of the
effectiveness of AHSCT combined with a conditioning regimen in the management of MS disease symptoms may result from the study of these molecules post-transplant.
I hope that you guys found this post informative and were as amazed as me, through this we learn the importance of research and the good it holds for the society.
We will come back soon with such interesting articles in our next post to keep you engaged,
stay tuned......
READ FURTHER
Links:
1. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-4422(22)00168-5
2. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-4422(21)00214-3
3. https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2021/761174s000lbl.pdf
4. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33001143/
5. https://doi.org/10.2147/BTT.S267277