A new collaborative work reported in Annals of Oncology and featured at ASCO 2022!

Acetaminophen (APAP) either alone or in combination with weak opioid is usually considered as the first-choice drug to mitigate cancer-associated pain. While being considered as safe, there are several lines of evidence suggesting that APAP may have negative immunomodulatory effects.

In this collaborative work, researchers from Institut Bergonié, Institut Gustave Roussy, and Explicyte, demonstrated that presence of APAP in plasma from cancer patients before they undergo immunotherapy was independently associated with a worse clinical outcome. Also, APAP was shown to limit ICB efficacy in the preclinical MC38 model, an effect associated with an enrichment in regulatory T cells (Tregs) within the tumor. After its administration in healthy individuals, APAP was found to expand Tregs and increase markers such as LAG3 and TIM3, markers known to be associated with immune suppression.

By combining clinical and preclinical investigations, we were thus able to demonstrate a detrimental effect of APAP on cancer immunotherapy efficacy which thus warrant further investigations to elucidate the underlying mechanism of action.

This piece of work has been published in Annals of Oncology and orally presented by Antoine ITALIANO at ASCO earlier this month.