Category: Clinical Trials

Clotting and Cancer: What’s the Connection?

 

Red Blood Cells_nci-vol-3696-150
Image Credit: National Cancer Institute (NCI)

What We Already Know

In the body, there is a tight relationship between cancer development and growth, treatment, and the clotting system. Cancer cells produce substances that “thicken” the blood, so men and women with cancer have a significantly higher risk of developing blood clots. On average, people with cancer are 4-7 times more likely to have blood clots than similar people without cancer. Additionally, patients with cancer being treated for blood clots with traditional anticoagulants have a higher risk of bleeding than patients without cancer.

The importance of this connection is highlighted by a dedicated conference, the International Conference on Thrombosis and Hemostasis Issues in Cancer (ICTHIC). The ICTHIC meeting features educational and scientific presentations on epidemiology, biology, prevention, and treatment of clotting and bleeding related to cancer.

The 8th meeting just took place in Bergamo, Italy. World-renowned clinicians and laboratory scientists once again met and updated colleagues. Highlights included multiple presentations and discussions about risk factors for and treatment of cancer-associated venous thrombosis, blood test-based biomarkers assessing the risk of the development or recurrence of clots, lab studies investigating the mechanisms of the tight relationship between the development, progression, and treatment of cancer and thrombosis, and clinical data regarding the treatment or prevention of blood clots in patients with cancer. Special lectures included Dr. Wolfram Ruf delivering the 4th Simon Karpatkin memorial lecture on “Targeting clotting proteins in cancer therapy” where he described years of research on tissue factors involved in cancer growth and spread (metastasis). Dr. Frederick Rickles described the history of the ICTHIC from its inception in 2001 and how the field has progressed since then with an improvement in both the science in the lab and in the treatment methods and diagnostics used in the patient clinic setting.

What’s New?

Much of this year’s conference focused on venous thromboembolism (VTE), which is most commonly manifested by deep vein thrombosis (DVT = blood clots usually in legs/pelvis) and pulmonary embolism (PE = blood clots in lungs). However, it is now clear that patients with cancer also suffer from a higher rate of arterial thrombosis, meaning that they experience a higher rate of heart attacks and stroke.

In the initial Plenary session on Epidemiology, Dr. Babak Navi, Assistant Professor of Neurology at Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM), presented data on the risk of heart attacks and stroke in women with breast cancer. In collaboration with colleagues at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, he used data from a large database of patients with Medicare. This dataset showed that women diagnosed with breast cancer have a higher risk of a heart attack or stroke in the first year after diagnosis compared to similar women without breast cancer.

What We’ve Discovered

This year at ICTHIC, we presented data that followed up on a small pilot study presented at the 7th ICTHIC Meeting in 2014 in which Drs. Choe, Tagawa, and others from WCM’s Meyer Cancer Center and the Englander Institute for Precision Medicine utilized genomic data from men with different types of prostate cancer. Patients with advanced prostate cancer had higher expression of genes involved in coagulation and thrombosis compared to patients with early stage (localized) prostate cancer. Interestingly, patients with NEPC had different gene expression compared to patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.

Historically, multiple studies showed that patients with cancer and blood clots had more recurrent clots compared to similar patients without cancer. This led to a change in practice starting in 2003 and now many patients use injectable medications (low molecular weight heparin) as opposed to the traditional oral medications (such as warfarin/Coumadin).

Shortly after this change in best practice, we launched a collaborative study with the University of Southern California, testing one of these injectable low molecular weight heparins (tinzaparin) for the treatment of patients with cancer and blood clots. Part of the study included regular and ongoing blood draws in order to examine the biology of the blood in these patients. In the Plenary session on the treatment of cancer-related blood clots, Dr. Tagawa from WCM and Drs. Piatek, Liebman and others from USC presented the results of this study to a global audience.

The results showed that Tinzaparin performed well when examining recurrent blood clot and bleeding rates. In addition, a blood test at the initial diagnosis of the clot called D-dimer was associated with the chance of a recurrent blood clot 6 months later. The team continues to investigate a number of additional blood test biomarkers from patients with and without blood clots in this study. We hope to be able to identify patients who are most likely to develop a blood clot and for those that do, who is most likely to have recurrence of their blood clot. In the future, this may lead to individualization of the type and/or length of treatment.

What We’re Still Trying to Find Out

WCM and other investigators continue to delve into the problem of neuroendocrine prostate cancer (NEPC), an increasingly common lethal form of the disease. Clinicians dealing with this disease believe that men with this variant of prostate cancer suffer from more blood clots than those with the more common types. However, we still don’t know whether this is related to bulkier tumors, the propensity of treating physicians to use platinum-chemotherapy (which is associated with clots), or underlying disease biology.

In addition to gaining additional insight for individual patients using biomarkers, we are also continuing to develop new drugs for the treatment of clots in patients with cancer. Several new oral agents work in patients without cancer with preliminary data in cancer patients, as well. WCM physicians are joining a global study comparing one of these new oral drugs with the standard injectable medication.

What are Cancer Neoantigens? The Link Between Neoantigens and Immunotherapy

By Bishoy Faltas, M.D.

Our immune system has evolved over time to enable us to fight infections. Our bodies need to differentiate between our own cells (self) and cells from bacteria and viruses (non-self) in order to mount an effective attack to eliminate the invaders. In order to do that, our immune system has learned to recognize fragments of foreign proteins, which carry a specific sequence that marks them as “targets” for the immune system. We call these antigens.

Cancer cells thrive because they hide from the immune system, but their disguise is not perfect. Cells typically become cancerous because of changes in their genetic makeup. These same changes can result in proteins that the immune system is able to recognize as foreign. These are called neoantigens, and refer to new cancer antigens that cue the immune system to attack the cancer and eliminate it.

neoantigen[2]
New sequencing technologies enable us to detect new cancer antigens unique to each patient.
The immune system just needs a little help to make this happen. To tip the balance in favor of the immune system, we now use drugs called immune checkpoint inhibitors. These unleash the power of the immune system to attack the tumor. A good way to think about it is as “releasing the brakes” off the immune response. This approach to treatment is very promising for bladder cancer, especially when other treatments have failed to stop the cancer from progressing or metastasizing to other organs.

To understand which patients are most likely to respond to these immune checkpoint inhibitors, we conducted a study examining the neoantigens in bladder cancer patients at Weill Cornell Medicine. Our analyses found many differences in the neoantigens between untreated tumors and advanced tumors that had previously been treated with chemotherapy from advanced chemotherapy-resistant bladder cancers. More details on our findings can be found here:

In the future, we are hoping to use neoantigens as biomarkers that tell us which patients are most likely to respond to specific immunotherapies. A form of precision medicine, this will help us to narrowly tailor our treatment approach to each patient.

Some of our current immunotherapy treatments for people with bladder cancers include:

Cancer: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Immunotherapy wolf in disguiseCancer cells can be pretty sneaky, altering their make-up or microenvironment to avoid detection by our body’s immune system. As a result, the immune system, which is designed to fight off “invaders,” can’t detect cancer as foreign and doesn’t have its guard up.

Earlier this month, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital kicked off a new ad campaign highlighting how immunotherapy is working to change just that. Immunotherapy treatments are designed to help activate the immune system and kick it into high gear, helping it fight the very cancer it was previously unable to detect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmtGKer20aY

New scientific discoveries happening right here at Weill Cornell Medicine are making this possible. Our physician-scientists and researchers at the Meyer Cancer Center have found ways to help the immune system better recognize and destroy cancer cells by designing new immunotherapy drugs, cancer “vaccines,” and combination treatments. Through precision medicine and an individualized approach to cancer care, we are developing new ways to treat cancer more successfully than ever before. And, we’re accomplishing these results with less toxicity.

Over the past decade, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved several new immunotherapy drugs for advanced cancers. At the Weill Cornell Genitourinary (GU) Oncology Program, we have greatly contributed to the efforts to obtain FDA-approval for immunotherapies for GU cancers, including kidney cancer, bladder cancer, and prostate cancer.

For kidney cancer, we have been involved in many studies of drugs utilizing the immune system to fight cancer, including the phase 2 clinical trial that formed the basis for the large trial leading to the FDA approval and general availability of nivolumab (Opdivo) for renal cell carcinoma. Nivolumab is an immunotherapy that works by allowing the body’s existing immune system to kill tumors. Our team is now working on ways to improve this drug and other types of drugs.

For bladder and other urothelial cancers, we have been instrumental in the development of several antibodies that can be used with and without chemotherapy. Sacituzumab Govitecan (IMMU-132), an antibody-drug conjugate, has had remarkable preliminary activity. It works by leveraging the immune system and bringing a powerful drug directly to the interior of cancer cells in order to kill them from the inside out. We are continuing to use this drug as well as other immunotherapeutic agents to improve outcomes for patients with these types of cancer.

Based upon several scientific properties, prostate cancer is a good tumor type for immunotherapy, and in fact, the first therapeutic cancer vaccine (used to treat cancer rather than prevent cancer) was approved for prostate cancer. At Weill Cornell Medicine, exploiting the immune system remains a focus in fighting prostate cancer, with a number of ongoing and upcoming clinical trials. Weill Cornell Medicine continues to be a worldwide leader in work with monoclonal antibodies, which are proteins (like a “key”) that very specifically target cancer cells (with a specific “lock” that is not present on normal cells). In particular, our work with antibodies against prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) has led to the development of several targeted therapies for prostate cancer. These antibodies can be linked to powerful radioactive particles or drugs that seek out prostate cancer cells (like a smart bomb). For men with prostate cancer whose PSAs rise despite hormonal therapy, we are leading a study of targeted radioimmunotherapy that aims to prevent metastatic disease. In addition, the antibody itself may be able to generate an immune response in prostate tumors and lead to clearance of circulating tumor cells. We are also working on developing vaccines for men with rising PSAs following surgery or radiation.

We continue to examine many promising, cutting-edge immunotherapies through our robust clinical trial program. Click the below links to learn more about eligibility and open clinical trials across the spectrum of GU cancers:

Open Immunotherapy-Based Clinical Trials

Prostate Cancer

Kidney, Bladder and Urothelial Cancers

To search our complete list of our open clinical trials, click here.