Tumors decreased in melanoma, lung cancer, breast cancer, and colon cancer.
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COVID-19, which terrified the world, is still causing great harm to health. However, research has shown that cancer is an exception.
A study published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation found that immune cells produced during severe COVID-19 infection may help shrink tumors.
Researchers at Northwestern University School of Medicine in the United States discovered that in some patients who suffered from both severe COVID-19 and cancer, tumors shrank after infection, and analyzed blood samples from people who had severe COVID-19.
The results of the study showed that monocytes generated after severe infection possess special receptors that bind well to specific sequences of COVID-19 RNA. The researchers explained, “If monocytes are a lock, you can think of COVID-19 RNA as a key that fits the lock.”
Typically, cancer spreads when monocytes gather at the tumor site. When tumor cells convert monocytes into cancer-friendly cells, the monocytes protect the cancer cells from the immune system and allow the tumor to grow.
However, monocytes transformed by COVID-19 infection were found to have cancer-fighting properties. The modified monocytes did not convert into cancer-friendly cells that protect the tumor, but rather activated natural killer cells when they moved to the tumor site in mice and got close to the tumor. Afterwards, natural killer cells attacked cancer cells and caused the cancer to shrink.
The researchers administered drugs that induce monocytes and mimic the immune response to COVID-19 infection to mice with various types of stage 4 cancer tumors, including melanoma, lung cancer, breast cancer, and colon cancer. As a result, tumors shrank in four types of cancer.
“Previous studies have shown that certain inflammatory diseases, such as COVID-19, can induce changes in monocyte properties,” said Dr. Christopher Ohl, a professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in the US, who was not involved in the study. “These induced monocytes are trained to specifically target the virus and orchestrate a more effective immune response.”
“This mechanism may work in humans and may also work in other types of cancer,” said study author Dr. Ankit Bharat. “However, the COVID-19 vaccines on the market do not use the same RNA sequence as the virus. “It is unlikely that this phenomenon will occur,” he said.
“Importantly, this mechanism offers new therapeutic possibilities for advanced cancers that do not respond to treatments such as immunotherapy,” he added.
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