Teachable moment in classrooms:
- tissue chapter – general characteristics of epithelial and connective tissues
- cellular basis of life chapter – proteins in cell membranes can serve as receptors
- immune system chapter – CD8-T-cells actively destroy target cells
- immune system chapter – antibodies can be engineered to bind to specific targets
The news item:
Recently a newly approved treatment for childhood soft tissue cancer was reported:
Drug Approved to Help Young Patients Battle a Rare Cancer
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The article states that the drug Tecentriq was approved for use against alveolar soft part sarcoma (a soft tissue cancer). About 80 children and adults in the USA are diagnosed each year with his sarcoma, and most conventional treatments fail to fight it. The article also states that Tecentriq is an anti-PD-L1 inhibitor, and works by helping the immune system respond more strongly to cancer.
So, Why Do I Care?? While the overall number of cancer patients diagnosed with alveolar soft part sarcoma is low, these patients could not be helped by regular cancer treatments. Finding new cancer treatment approaches for these patients opens the possibility to treat other cancers where traditional cancer treatment failed.
Plain English, Please!!! First, let’s talk about what a sarcoma is. The sarcoma type of cancers start from connective tissue, as opposed to the carcinoma type of cancers that start from epithelial tissues. The general course of the sarcomas is similar to other cancers, and that includes local growth, and the spreading, metastasizing throughout the body. Alveolar soft part sarcoma was named such, because the cancer cells form baggy, alveolus-looking microscopic structures.
Second, let’s talk about how cancer cells can slow down the immune system. One normal function of our immune system is to detect and destroy cells that show evidence of infection or abnormal components.