A protein that helps prevent a woman’s body from rejecting a fetus may also play an important role in enabling pancreatic cancer cells to evade detection by the immune system, allowing them to spread in the body. Researchers at Jefferson’s Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia found that the metastatic cancer cells in the lymph nodes of patients with pancreatic cancer produce enough of the protein, IDO, to essentially wall-off the immune system’s T-cells and recruit cells that suppress the immune system’s response to the tumor. The findings might mean not only a better way to detect pancreatic cancer spreading to lymph nodes, but also could enhance tumor immune therapy strategies against the fast-moving, deadly disease. Read full article below.
