Immunity at work 24/7 to kill blood cancer cells

Scientists have found that our immune system is constantly on the job to prevent cancer by eliminating certain potentially cancerous immune cells in their early stages.

The whole idea is to improve your immunity levels so that the surveillance system can work at its best in killing cancerous immune B cells before they developed into B-cell lymphomas - blood cancer in the lymph glands.

"Our finding that immune surveillance by T cells enables early detection and elimination of these cancerous and pre-cancerous cells provides an answer proves that immune surveillance is essential to preventing the development of this blood cancer," said Axel Kallies from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Australia.

This immune surveillance accounts for what researchers call the 'surprising rarity' of B-cell lymphomas in the population, given how often these spontaneous changes occur.

The discovery could lead to the development of an early-warning test that identifies patients at high risk of developing B-cell lymphomas, enabling proactive treatment to prevent tumours from growing.

The research team made the discovery while investigating how B cells change when lymphoma develops.

"We 'disabled' the T cells to suppress the immune system and, to our surprise, found that lymphoma developed in a matter of weeks, where it would normally take years," added Kallies.

It seems that our immune system is better equipped than we imagined to identify and eliminate cancerous B cells, a process that is driven by the immune T cells in our body, he explained.

The research would enable scientists to identify pre-cancerous cells in the initial stages of their development, enabling early intervention for patients at risk of developing B-cell lymphoma.

"There are already therapies that could remove these 'aberrant' B cells in at-risk patients, so once a test is developed it can be rapidly moved towards clinical use," informed David Tarlinton, an associate professor.

The study was published in the journal Nature Medicine.