Scientists have been using the immune T-cells to target cancers, producing extraordinary results. Patients who would typically only have a few months to live are now in remission.
The scientists have shown that this process, which involves the engineering of immune cells to target a specific type of blood cancer, has been very successful in their early clinical trials.
Widespread implementation of this practice will take some time, as is the case with all medical advancements. Not to mention the use of T-cell therapy is very dangerous and typically only used as a last resort. But for those patients who have exhausted all other options, the early results of this process is extremely promising.
The T-cell therapy is administered by removing immune cells from patients and then tagging them with receptor molecules that target a specific cancer. The cells are then infused back in the body.
Speaking at the annual meeting for the American Association for the Advancement for 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.” In one of the studies, 94% of participants with acute lymphoblastic leukemia saw symptoms vanish completely.
So far, these tests have only targeted certain blood cancers. More will need to be done to determine how long patients remain in remission; cancer cells can sometimes hid unnoticed by the body’s defenses, or instead, overwhelm the defense systems and throw the immune system into overdrive.
“Much like chemotherapy and radiotherapy, it’s not going to be a save-all,” Riddell said of the new therapy, adding: “I think immunotherapy has finally made it to a pillar of cancer therapy.”
To learn more about this study, please check out this Guardian article.
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