Patient receiving time cancer treatment A new study suggests that it may affect your results.
A new study published in Cancer, the official journal of the American Cancer Society, found that patients who received standard immunochemotherapy in advanced stages small cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC) saw a “significantly greater benefit” in patients who received the same treatment later in the afternoon compared to patients who received the same treatment earlier in the day.
In the study, researchers at the Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Xiangya Medical College, Central South University in China analyzed data from about 400 patients treated between May 2019 and October 2023.
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All patients had ES-SCLC and were receiving first-line immunotherapy (atezolizumab or durvalumab) along with chemotherapy, according to a press release.
“In our study, we found that patients who received immunochemotherapy before 3 p.m. had significantly longer progression-free survival and overall survival,” study lead author Dr. Zhang Yongchang, a medical oncologist and director of Hunan Cancer Hospital in Changsha, China, told FOX News Digital.
“After adjusting for multiple confounders, early treatment was associated with a 52% lower risk of disease.” cancer progression And the risk of death is reduced by 63%. ”
“It was very surprising that simply changing the infusion time could have such a significant survival benefit for patients,” he added.
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This finding is consistent with the idea of chronotherapy, which suggests that the body’s natural daily rhythms influence how the immune system works and how drugs work in the body.
This means cancer treatment They may be more effective at certain times of the day, the study suggests, perhaps because immune activity and drug processing vary over a 24-hour cycle.
Based on the results, Zhang recommends scheduling immunotherapy infusions earlier in the day.
“Studies across multiple cancer types show that patients who receive immunotherapy early have longer survival times,” he noted. “Our findings regarding non-small cell lung cancer are the result of a multicenter retrospective study. Prospective clinical trialcheck this pattern. ”
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Dr. Gilberto Lopez, Chief Oncology Similar previous studies in non-small cell lung cancer have shown better results when immunotherapy is given earlier in the day, supporting the idea that the immune system follows circadian rhythms that influence treatment response, said Drs. and colleagues at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
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“In that sense, this result is biologically plausible and consistent with a growing body of evidence across cancers,” Lopez, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital. “What’s surprising is that this signal is now also present in small cell lung cancer, where outcomes are notoriously difficult to improve.”
This study had several limitations, as detailed in the published study. Most notably, this study was retrospective and observational, meaning it could not prove a causal relationship between the timing of infection. Treatment and results.
In this type of study, “researchers start with an idea and work backwards through patient records,” Lopez said. According to oncologists, other factors can influence the outcome in this case.
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“For example, did patients who came earlier in the day have better symptoms? quality of lifeperformance status, socio-economic status, and did that make a difference?” he asked. These results should be prospectively confirmed to eliminate known and unknown sources of bias. ”
Zhang also pointed out that this was a single-center study that included only Chinese patients. “More conclusive evidence requires prospective clinical trials conducted in multiple countries and diverse populations,” he told Fox News Digital.
Looking to the future, researchers plan to: randomized trial We confirm these preliminary findings and pinpoint the optimal treatment duration based on each patient’s chronotype (body clock).
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“This study should not cause patients to delay treatment or panic about their appointment time,” Lopez warned. “But it raises an important low-cost question for oncology systems: If there is flexibility in the schedule, is it better to have earlier infusion times?”
“The next step is prospective testing, but in the meantime, this study prompts us to rethink something that medicine typically ignores: timing itself.”
