Cancer treatment has never been easy. Over the years, doctors have been successful in treating some forms of cancer, one of the most dreaded diseases known. Recently, a new treatment might improve chances for those who have at least one type of cancer.
Non-Hodgkins lymphoma is a type of cancer that affects the blood. Generally, this type of cancer is known to be hard to treat, but researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center are working on a treatment that involves the chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell treatment might have found a way to beat it.
Led by Dr. Cameron Turtle, the study involved 32 patients with different chemotherapy treatments, according to Time Magazine. Immune cells are then added onto the treatment, in order to find and destroy cancer cells. All of the patients were first given traditional treatment, which proved to be have little response. Adding the immunotherapy, however, showed marked improvements among patients.
As noted by Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News, 50% of the 18 patients who had CAR T-cells and chemotherapy had a complete response. This contrasted to the 8% response of those who did not have the CAR T-cell treatment.
CAR T-cell treatment is so far limited only those who have blood cancer. In eliminating cancer cells, chemotherapy had to be done to destroy as much of the cancer cells as possible. In order to ensure that there aren't too many of the cancer cells that remain, two other drugs are added before putting in the CAR T-cells.
The research has shown that cells could be made to fight cancer in the same way that antiviruses had been made. That means that T-cells would have to be nurtured in a lab and then have them trained to recognize and fight cancer cells.
Introducing T-cells to fight cancer cells does have some side effects. For one, the patient could go on a fever as the T-cells fight cancer cells. This is like antiviruses fighting off viruses. Having a fever is a sign that the body is fighting back against the disease.
In the study, 20 of the 32 patients had inflammation and low blood pressure. Four of them had to be in intensive care as symptoms had become severe. While the results are still preliminary, the researchers are hopeful that they will find the right chemotherapy regimen and a right dose of CAR-T-cells to patients.
"This study shows that at the right dose of CAR-T-cells and lymphodepletion, we can achieve very good response rates for NHL patients who have no other treatment options," Dr. Turtle said.
There is also much promise in finding treatment for Alzheimer's disease, as stated in a previous iTechPost report.
