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It may be possible to use immunotherapy to treat bowel cancers that have stopped responding to treatment.

So hints a small study of 35 people with advanced bowel cancer. The study found that cancer-killing immune cells were on average six times more active in tumours that had become resistant to cetuximab than those that had not responded to the drug at all.

Cetuximab is one of the main drugs used to treat bowel cancer, but it only works in about half of patients. Even among cancers that initially respond to the drug, most tumours eventually become resistant to it. Once this happens, there are few treatment options left.

But the discovery that immune cells are particularly active in cetuximab-resistant tumours suggests that it might be possible to boost this immune response.

To see immune activity in bowel cancers is rare, says Marco Gerlinger at the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, who was involved in the study.

The team thinks that cetuximab kills cancer cells in a way that sends signals that attract immune cells to the tumour.

鈥淚t鈥檚 enormously exciting to see that cetuximab attracts immune cells into these tumours,鈥� says Gerlinger.

A trial is now testing whether immunotherapy can harness this immune response. The trial is using two immunotherapy drugs 鈥� nivolumab and relatlimab 鈥� to see if such treatment could help people whose tumours have become resistant to cetuximab and chemotherapy.

This research forms part of a new programme of work at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, focussing on developing anti-evolution treatments for cancers.

Journal reference:聽Cancer Cell