Researchers at CHA Bundang Medical Center have developed a new treatment that overcomes the resistance problem of existing immunotherapeutic agents.

The team, led by Professors Kim Chan and Jun Hong-jae, overcame such resistance by using triple combination immunotherapy, which uses stimulator of interferon genes (STING), cancer angiogenesis inhibitors and immunotherapy.

Sting is an in-vivo sensor that detects the invasion of cancer cells.

The researchers produced such results after analyzing the cancer tissues of about 400 patients with intractable cancer, and found that STING, which usually acts as a sensor for recognizing cancer, also expresses itself in the cancerous blood vessels and is closely related to the immune response in the tumor.

The research is the first in the world that proved patients with higher STING expression have a better therapeutic prognosis.

Also, the team confirmed that 60 percent of the patients, who saw zero-response to immunotherapies due to resistance issues, showed complete remission of cancer when the team administered the triple combination immunotherapy.

“The treatment maintained the immunosuppressive effect for a long time and prolonged the survival time,” the hospital said in a news release.

Professor Kim said, “The research has identified a new therapeutic strategy that enhances the efficacy of immunotherapeutic agents such as PD-1 and CTLA-4 immunostimulants. Immunotherapy using STING agonists is expected to be a more effective treatment for intractable cancer such as kidney cancer, liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, and bladder cancer.”

The results of the research were published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.