A new personalized immunotherapy approach combining tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy with pembrolizumab (Keytruda) has shown promising results for patients with advanced gastrointestinal cancers, according to an NIH-led clinical trial published in Nature Medicine. This breakthrough offers hope for those who have exhausted standard treatments like chemotherapy.
How It Works
- Personalized Immune Boost: Doctors extract immune cells (TILs) from your tumor, grow them in large numbers in a lab, and reinfuse them into your body to target cancer cells.
- Enhanced Effectiveness: Adding pembrolizumab—a drug that prevents cancer from “hiding” from immune cells—helps the reinfused TILs work more effectively14.
Key Results
- In the trial of 91 patients with metastatic esophageal, stomach, pancreatic, or colorectal cancers:
- 24% saw significant tumor shrinkage when receiving TILs + pembrolizumab, compared to 8% with TILs alone.
- Responses lasted up to 3.5 years
TIL therapy was developed in the late 1980s by researchers at NIH. In 2024, the FDA approved the first TIL therapy for a solid cancer, lifileucel (Amtagvi), for treating advanced melanoma.
Reference:
Lowery FJ, Goff SL, Gasmi B, et al. Neoantigen-specific tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in gastrointestinal cancers: a phase 2 trial. Nature Medicine. April 1, 2025. DOI: 10.1038/s41591-025-03627-5.
