Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/y45ok4Y3Lig   The good ole nausea drug, Compazine or prochlorperazine, prevents tumor cells from hiding surface receptors that immunotherapy drugs require for the kill.  Oncologists at Australia’s University of Queenland studied this receptor hiding process called endocytosis in both human cells and a mouse model.   Studying human squamous cell carcinoma cells, they observed less endocytosis and more antibody binding sites in cells from patients responding better to cetuximab, an anticancer antibody to skin growth factor.  The endocytosis inhibitor Compazine demonstrably helped cancer immunotherapy in mice.  The drug turbocharged tumor cell killing by both the anti-tumor antibody cetuximab and the check point inhibitor avelumab.   Compazine may well be an effective antidote to immunotherapy failures.    Hui Yi Chew, Priscila O. De Lima, Jazmina L. Gonzalez Cruz, etal. Endocytosis Inhibition in Humans to Improve Responses to ADCC-Mediating Antibodies. Cell, 2020; 180 (5): 895 DOI: 10