Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are a type of immunotherapy that are used as a treatment in cancer patients. These treatments work by changing the immune system of the patients to attack the tumour cells. While ICIs have been helpful for many cancer patients in terms of survival, there’s still a lot we don’t know about how to make them work even better and with fewer side effects. One idea is that exercise might help boost how well your immune system responds to ICIs. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the association between exercise and various markers in the blood that show how the patient’s immune system is doing.
From the UK Biobank database, we will select all patients who have data available on how much they exercise. We will then use this information, as well as data around markers in the blood that tell us about their immune system and stress levels. Using various statistical techniques, we will then look at how exercise affects the levels of these markers in the blood.
This project is expected to last around 12 months. Data generated as part of this study will be utilised alongside similar analyses in other databases and will help to support a proposal for a multi-centre randomised controlled trial, which is the highest level of evidence which can be generated in clinical research. Data from both this study and the clinical trial will help us to understand the underlying biological pathways that occur when people exercise in terms of the immune response. This information will help us to better understand how we can help personalise cancer treatment with ICIs with the aim to improve response rates and minimise treatment related side effects.
