Overview

• Researchers report that cancer cells degrade myelin on nearby nerves, triggering inflammation that exhausts antitumor immunity and undermines treatment.
• Injured neurons release IL-6 and type I interferons, shifting an initially reparative response into a chronically suppressive tumor microenvironment.
• Analyses of patient trial samples and preclinical models linked this nerve injury pathway to resistance across cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, melanoma, gastric cancer and pancreatic cancer.
• Resistance was reversed in experimental systems by removing pain-transmitting nerves, blocking neuronal injury signals, or pairing anti–PD-1 with IL-6–pathway inhibitors.
• The multi-institutional team highlights perineural invasion as an active immunosuppressive process and points to actionable targets in cancer neuroscience.