Articles related to MERKEL CELL CARCINOMA

The Hall-of-Fame quarterback recently alerted worried viewers about the diagnosis of the rare disease after he felt some pain in his neck. Ultimately, the diagnosis changed his outlook on life. “We’re going to go to Europe, going to go to Paris, going to go to wherever we want to go. I’m going to get all this in because I feel like I don’t want to put this off anymore … I may have 25, 30 years left, but I’m going to act like I got one.” Terry Bradshaw

Reversal of HLA-I loss is crucial for an effective antitumor cytotoxic T cell response. Thus, HLA-I–upregulating drugs could augment immunotherapy response. The authors describe here a small-molecule USP7 inhibitor as a promising avenue for pharmacologic upregulation of HLA-I in MCC.

MDM2 is an important regulator of p53 and can be an effective therapeutic target in cancers. Pharmacological inhibition of MDM2 for stabilization of p53 has been of interest for several years and several MDM2 inhibitors targeting the MDM2-p53 interaction are currently in clinical trials. Approximately 80% of Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) tumors have wild type p53 and could potentially respond to treatment with MDM2 inhibitors. In this study, milademetan showed a dose-dependent inhibition of tumor growth in MKL-1 xenograft and patient-derived xenograft models and is a potent MDM2 inhibitor in MCC.