"Esophageal cancer is among the top 10 deadliest cancers worldwide, with the adenocarcinoma (EAC) variant representing the predominant histological subtype in western countries. The standard therapy for esophageal adenocarcinoma is pre-operative neoadjuvant chemo-radiation and surgery. Only about 20% of patients achieve a pathological complete response (pCR) and increased 5-year survival after NACR. Understanding the mechanisms of response to NACR is pivotal to better stratify patients and inform the design of more efficacious therapies.
Evidence suggests that the neoadjuvant chemo-radiatiotherapy stimulates anti-cancer immune responses, which may contribute to the long-term effects of successful treatments.
Tumor-specific responses of T lymphocytes, cells of the immune system, are directed against proteins from DNA mutations in the tumor, that are recognized as ""non-self"".
This project investigates whether the apathologic complete response to neoadjuvant chemo-radiotherapy treatment achieved in a fraction of patients with esophageal cancer may result from the stimulation of tumor-specific immune responses that contributes to cancer cell elimination.
This proof-of concept study may lead to the definition of novel and more efficacious immunotherapeutic approaches for EAC, including the design of cancer vaccines to newly diagnosed cases to block disease progression, with a strong impact in ameliorating the patients quality of life.
The overall objective of this project are to investigate the molecular and cellular mechanisms of immune response against esophageal cancer upon neoadjuvant chemo-radiotherapy, by comparing responder and non-responder patients for the molecular pathways in the tumor, the infiltration of cells of the immune system in the tumor and the regognition of tumor DNA mutation by the patients immune system."
