A single research test has the potential to predict which patients treated with immunotherapies—which harness the immune system to attack cancer cells—are likely to have their cancer recur or have severe side effects, a new study found.

Published online September 15 in Clinical Cancer Research, the study revolved around the set of immune system signaling proteins called antibodies that recognize invading bacteria, viruses, and fungi. These blood proteins are designed to glom onto and inactivate specific bacterial and viral proteins, but in some cases "autoantibodies" also react to the body's "self" proteins to cause autoimmune disease.

Led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and its Perlmutter Cancer Center, the new study generated data suggesting that a newly identified a panel of autoantibodies, if found in patients' blood before immunotherapy, has the potential to accurately predict whether a patient's cancer would recur and if they would experience autoimmune side effects because of the treatment itself. The study patients had received adjuvant immunotherapy, where the aim is to keep cancer from returning after prior treatment.

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