A groundbreaking study conducted by researchers at the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute has revealed that the COVID-19 virus may have the unexpected ability to fight cancer. The findings, which will be published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation in November, indicate that SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, can trigger immune responses that shrink cancerous tumors. This discovery could lead to new cancer treatment options, especially for patients with aggressive or advanced cancers.
The Surprising Anti-Cancer Impact of COVID-19 For many doctors, the coronavirus pandemic brought only misery, but for some cancer patients, it had an unexpected silver lining: their tumors shrunk or at least slowed in growth. These were anecdotal accounts from doctors who have long been intrigued by such cases. “We didn’t know if it was real, because these patients were so sick,” said Dr.
Ankit Bharat, chief of thoracic surgery at Northwestern University. This led Dr. Bharat and his team to research whether the response of the immune system to COVID-19 could, in fact, involve attack cells harboring cancer.
How COVID-19 Changes Immune Cells Monocytes help the immune system to sense danger and initiate responses from other immune cells after having sensed something, while in the case of SARS-CoV-2, this functioning is distorted. SARS-CoV-2 cancer cells sometimes use monocytes as an immunological shield that prevents the immune system from reaching the hiding .
