Scientists say tests of a potentially groundbreaking new cancer therapy have had “extraordinary” results.
More than 90 percent of terminally ill Leukemia patients tested have reportedly gone into remission.
The therapy involves taking patients’ white blood cells, modifying them and putting them back.
However, the data has not yet been reviewed. Two patients are said to have died during testing after suffering an extreme immune response.
Lead scientist Professor Stanley Riddell labelled the early data “unprecendented”.
He told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that all other treatments had failed in the patients tested and they had only initially been given only two to five months to live.
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Must be a slow news week in Europe as this 'news' is nearly 5 years old - assuming it is about Chimeric Antigen Receptor T- Cell therapy (CAR-T therapy) where you take T-Lymphocytes (one of the white blood cell types) and genetically modify them so they will search out and kill the cancerous leukaemia cells (and unfortunately healthy cells of the same type as the leukaemia cells too).
The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society has an excellent article on CAR-T therapy
And there have been multiple posts about CAR-T therapy over the years to this community because the really big breakthrough happened 4 and a half years ago, when several CLL patients with no remaining treatment options were given CAR-T therapy with very encouraging results.
The Euro News article probably picked up the 'news' as reported here...
"The news bubbled out of the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting in Washington DC.
The lead scientist, Prof Stanley Riddell from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle, said all other treatments had failed in these patients and they had only two-to-five months to live"
Very current - It is based on T cell retraining - no mention of which blood cancer was being trialled but don't think these results referred to CLL.
"Some of the patients in the trial, which began in 2013, were originally not expected to survive for more than a few months because their disease had previously relapsed or was resistant to other treatments, said Dr. Stanley Riddell, an immunotherapy researcher and oncologist Fred Hutch. Today, there is no sign of disease.
:
:
The trial is designed to test the safety of the latest iteration of an experimental immunotherapy in which a patient’s own T cells are reprogrammed to eliminate his or her cancer. The reprogramming involves genetically engineering the T cells with synthetic molecules called chimeric antigen receptors, or CARs, that enable them to target and destroy tumor cells bearing a particular target. Trial participants include patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. (My emphasis)
Still, it's good to see that active research is continuing into CAR-T therapy, because as Chris has pointed out, there remain significant barriers to making this technique widely useable.
AussieNeil is right - CAR-T clinical trials were started about 10 years ago. Unfortunately today CAR-T treatment is tailored to an individual's specific blood cancer and only available in clinical trials. Lots of CAR-T information is available (including clinical trials) at: lymphomation.org/programing...
Cancer Research UK have written a cautionary note on their website about the media reporting on this - not yet peer reviewed and high proportion of adverse events.
Great idea though but needs to be a lot safer.
I saw a professor talking about this T cell immunology on a tv program. He said it would take 5 to 10 years' to fine tune this treatment.
Not to burst 'hope' bubbles...it is frankly not great in CLL, there are issues to be resolved, cost being one of them... might one day replace stem cell transplant... certainly won't be first or second line therapy...
They now have an 'off the shelf' T cell, so they don't need to harvest each patient's T cell, which will reduce costs... into the $500,000 range
In CLL there still remains the issue of cytokine storms... which can be fatal and the need for life long IVIG infusions...
This clearly will be used on childhood leukemias, particularly ALL, where it has been wonderful...
Still experimental...
Sad to know. If it sounds to good to be true, it is likely not true. Shame on the people whom feed on victim of disease.
The first time Cll has a cure and it is free. Call me then. Until then I likely do not have enough money. But, more importantly I have a happy life.
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