A New Class of Pain Medicine from Cancer Cells – PD-L1 inhibits acute & chronic pain

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PD-L1 inhibits acute and chronic pain by suppressing nociceptive neuron activity via PD-1 : Nature Neuroscience 

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For the nonscientist, this report may explain better:

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Cancer actually yields a painkiller

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Scientists have discovered a potent painkiller in an unlikely place — cancer cells.

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This painkiller strongly inhibits acute and chronic pain in mouse models of melanoma, according to a study published Monday in Nature Neuroscience.

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Called PD-L1, the molecule is known to inhibit immune function, which helps cancers evade immune surveillance. It’s also produced in neurons. If it can be used to make an analgesic drug, it would represent a new class of painkillers, something badly needed.

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The molecule acts by targeting a cellular receptor called PD-1 and has been a longstanding target of cancer therapies called checkpoint inhibitors seeking to activate the immune system. But its painkilling effect is news.

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Ru Rong Ji of Duke University was senior author. Gang Chen and Yoang Ho Kim, also of Duke University, were first authors. The study can be found online at j.mp/cancerspain.

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…..Dr. Patel, oncologist from UCSD says: “This could result in a therapy that helps patients in a year or two years, just because so much has been done in the field.”

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The relationship between cancer and pain is complex, Patel said. PD-L1 suppresses inflammation, which activates the immune system, and also causes pain, Patel said. But there are other ways of activating the immune system, such as with the new cancer immunotherapy treatments, which don’t increase pain, he said.

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….The increased pain response is also caused by the cancer drug nivolumab. The drug, sold under the name Opdivo, targets PD-1 and shows success in treating melanoma, lymphoma and lung cancer. It produced strong allodynia for five hours in the mice, according to the study.

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Nivolumab is one of the new checkpoint inhibitor cancer drugs that targets PD-L1 receptors with immunomodulatory antibodies that are used to enhance the immune system. They can produce a wide spectrum of side effects termed immune-related adverse events (irAEs) with inflammation due to immune enhancement involving several organ systems.

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This is not my field and perhaps I am wrong. But if treating those cancers with immunotherapy causes the worst known neuropathic pain by blocking checkpoint inhibitors, is it possible that a new pain drug having the opposite mechanism could relieve pain but cause cancer?

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This Nature publication references the growing body of work from the lab of Linda Watkins, PhD, et al, published in 2014:

.Pathological pain and the neuroimmune interface

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Reciprocal signalling between immunocompetent cells in the central nervous system (CNS) has emerged as a key phenomenon underpinning pathological and chronic pain mechanisms. Neuronal excitability can be powerfully enhanced both by classical neurotransmitters derived from neurons, and by immune mediators released from CNS-resident microglia and astrocytes, and from infiltrating cells such as T cells.

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The material on this site is for informational purposes only.

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It is not legal for me to provide medical advice without an examination.

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It is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment provided by a qualified health care provider.

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If you wish an appointment, please telephone the office to schedule.

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For My Home Page, click here:  Welcome to my Weblog on Pain Management!

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After Ketamine for pain, complaints of depression dropped in half & pain reports were lower

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KPBS Radio highlighted a new study today by UCSD School of Pharmacy

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San Diego Scientists Find Further Evidence A Club Drug Could Treat Depression

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In a new analysis published Wednesday in the journal Scientific Reports, UC San Diego researchers said millions of FDA side effect records reveal that people who took ketamine for pain relief reported lower rates of depression.

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“The occurrence of complaints about depression dropped in half after ketamine administration,” said UC San Diego Skaggs School of Pharmacy professor Ruben Abagyan, who led the study.

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The researchers focussed on the FDA’s Adverse Effect Reporting System, a database that tracks negative side effects among people who take various drugs. But the researchers were not primarily interested in bad outcomes.

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Instead, they looked for a positive outcome: declining rates of depression among people taking drugs not typically thought of as antidepressants.

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They found signs that other common drugs — including Botox, a pain reliever called diclofenac and the antibiotic minocycline — also reduced depression among patients in the FDA database.

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[minocycline is a glial modulator and it can prevent CRPS from spreading.]

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University of Miami psychiatry professor Charles Nemeroff wrote that the study was, “very interesting.”

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“The findings are of considerable interest. However the interpretation of the findings are key,” he wrote, saying it will be important to understand whether ketamine is directly treating depression or simply relieving pain, which can indirectly help people experience less depression.

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The UC San Diego researchers said they controlled for this variable by comparing people who took ketamine with those who took other pain medications. They said they still found a larger drop in depression among those who took ketamine.

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This is the open source (free) article in Nature with brief excerpts below:

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Population scale data reveals the antidepressant effects of ketamine and other therapeutics approved for non-psychiatric indications

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.Isaac V. Cohen, Tigran Makints, Rabia Atayee, Ruben Abagyan

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We found that patients listed in the FAERS database who received ketamine in addition to other therapeutics had significantly lower frequency of reports of depression than patients who took any other combination of drugs for pain (LogOR −0.67 ± 0.034) (Fig. 1c). This reduction in depression is specific to ketamine and is known to be much more rapid than current antidepressants, making this observed effect very promising for treatment of patients with acute depressive or suicidal episodes. These patients cannot afford to wait up to six weeks for reductions in their depressive symptoms. Pain reports were also significantly lower for ketamine patients (LogOR −0.41 ± 0.019) (Fig. 1c).

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The analysis of the whole FAERS database revealed several other unintentional depression reducing drugs among antibiotics, cosmeceuticals and NSAIDS (Fig. 2). Our data supported previous studies that observed the psychiatric polypharmacology of minocycline [my emphasis], a tetracycline antibiotic14 (Fig. 2). The NSAID, diclofenac [that has highest incidence of heart attack and cardiac arrhythmia of any NSAID], was also observed to have some antidepressant properties (Fig. 2). It is theorized that both of these drugs may accomplish antidepressant effects through an anti-inflammatory mechanism. Because of the antidepressant activity of several NSAIDs, we further separated the non-ketamine pain cohort. Ketamine patients were then compared to patients who received any other combination of drugs for pain excluding NSAIDs. It was observed that depression event rates remained low (LogOR −0.56 ± 0.035) (Fig. 2)..The reduction of depression rates in ketamine patient records makes a case for study of ketamine as a psychiatric drug. These results imply that ketamine may be further explored as a monotherapy or adjunct therapy for depression. It should also be noted that FAERS data revealed that ketamine use [may] lead to renal side effects and awareness and caution in patients with renal or hepatic impairment may be warranted (Fig. 1a and b). [my emphasis].

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As an important side note, we also evaluated efficacy and side effects with the use of ketamine for pain management. We found that patients who were on ketamine had reduced opioid induced side effects including constipation (LogOR −0.17 ± 0.023), vomiting (LogOR −0.16 ± 0.025), and nausea (LogOR −0.45 ± 0.034) than patients who received any other combination of drugs for pain indications (Fig. 1d). Our data supports ketamine’s opioid-sparing properties and alludes to the fact that patients may receive benefits of improved pain, reduced requirement of opioids, and ultimately less opioid reduced side effects.

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The results of this study support previous small scale studies’ conclusions that ketamine is a good monotherapy or adjunct therapy for depression. In clinical practice ketamine would be especially useful for depression because of the quick onset of its action compared to existing first line therapies. Regardless of the causative mechanism ketamine appears to have therapeutic potential for TRD. Further, the potential to reduce many of the most complained side effects of opioid treatment makes ketamine adjunct therapy for pain seem desirable.

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Overall, this study demonstrates that the therapeutic potential of ketamine can be derived from appropriate statistical analysis of existing population scale data. This study also outlines a methodology for discovering off label pharmacology of existing approved drugs. This method can be applied to other indications and may reveal new important uses of already approved drugs, providing reliable justification for new indications without large investments in additional clinical trials.

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FDA Adverse Event Reporting System. The FAERS database was created to support FDA’s post marketing surveillance on drugs and biologic therapeutics. It contains adverse reaction and medication error reports sent to the FDA through MedWatch, the FDA Safety Information and Adverse Event Reporting Program. Reporting is voluntary and is done by patients, family members, legal representatives, doctors, pharmacists and other health- care providers. If any party reports an adverse effect to the manufacturer, the manufacturer is legally obligated to forward the report to the FDA. Data is available online in quarterly format for AERS from the first quarter of 2004 to the third quarter of 2012 and for FAERS from the fourth quarter of 2012 to the first quarter of 2016.

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The study used over 8 million adverse event reports from first quarter of 2004 to the first quarter of 2016. All the quarterly files from 2004 to 2016 were combined into a master file which was used as the primary source for analysis. . . .

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Out of 8 million reports, 279,853 reports were used for analysis of ketamine in Fig. 1. Two cohorts for ketamine (K) patients and pain (P) patients with 41,337 and 238,516 patients respectively....

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The material on this site is for informational purposes only.

.

It is not legal for me to provide medical advice without an examination.

.

It is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment provided by a qualified health care provider.

~~

This site is not for email and not for appointments.

If you wish an appointment, please telephone the office to schedule.

~~~~~

For My Home Page, click here:  Welcome to my Weblog on Pain Management!

..

Please IGNORE THE ADS BELOW. They are not from me.

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