With extremely positive results on trials in terminally ill patients, does modified T-cell cancer therapy represent the future of effective cancer therapy?
By: Ringo Bones
Though it is yet to be peer reviewed by other researchers
but extremely positive results in early trials had the medical science
community hailing T-cell therapy as the future of cancer therapy and some even
said that it has put cancer on the run for the first time in the history of
cancer treatment. “This is unprecedented” said one researcher after more than
half of terminally ill blood cancer patients experienced complete remission in
early clinical trials. Scientists are
claiming “extraordinary” success with engineering immune cells to target a
specific type of blood cancer in their first clinical trials.
Among several dozen patients who would typically have only
had months to live, early experimental trials that used the immune system’s
T-cells to target cancers had “extraordinary results”. In one study, 94-percent
of participants with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) saw symptoms vanish
completely. Patients with other blood cancers have response rates greater than
80-percent and more than half experienced complete remission. Speaking at an
annual meeting for the American Association for the Advancement of Science
(AAAS), researcher Stanley Riddell said: “This is unprecedented in medicine, to
be honest, to get response rates in this range in these very advanced patients.”
Modified T-cell cancer therapy is a multi-step process that starts
when a sample of the patient’s T-cells (a type of white blood cell involved in
fighting infection) is taken from their blood. In the lab, these cells have
genetically modified sensor cells (antigen receptors) added to them that can
seek out certain cancers. The modified T-cells are then allowed to multiply and
then the genetically modified T-cells are infused back into the patient where
the new antigen receptors allow them to target and destroy the cancer cells.
“There are reasons to be optimistic, there are reasons to be
pessimistic,” said Stanley Riddell of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
in Washington State. He added that the researchers believe that lowering the
dose of the modified T-cells can reduce the risk of side-effects. Modified
T-cell cancer therapy is often considered an option of last resort because
reprogramming the immune system can come with dangerous side-effects, including
cytokine release syndrome (sCRS) – and overload of defense cells.
