Engineers are using a non-invasive optical probe to study the complex changes that occur in tumors following immunotherapy. Their approach combines detailed mapping of tumor biochemical composition with machine learning.
Immunotherapy truly works like magic and has fundamentally altered our understanding of how cancer can be managed. However, only 25% of patients benefit from it, so identifying predictive biomarkers to determine who should receive the treatment is critical.
Light is used in Raman spectroscopy to determine the molecular composition of materials. The researchers examined colon cancer tumors in mice treated with two types of immune checkpoint inhibitors used in immunotherapy and an untreated control group.
The researchers used label-free Raman spectroscopy to investigate biomolecular changes induced by anti-CTLA-4 and anti-PD-L1 immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) in colorectal tumor xenograft tumor microenvironment (TME).
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