Cell therapy offers hope of leukaemia cure
A PIONEERING cancer treatment that teaches the body to attack rogue cells has offered hope of a cure.
It eradicated the disease in 94 per cent of patients, one early trial showed.
It has shown particular promise for leukaemia and blood cancer, which together affect 30,000 new UK patients each year.
Doctors at the world’s largest cancer conference said the treatment, known as CAR-T cell therapy, involves taking a sample of blood and genetically altering the body’s own killer cells.
These cells are injected back into the body where they multiply and attack cancers.
One trial presented to the American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago showed that CAR-T had eradicated cancer in eight out of nine patients.
The patients, who had chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, which is considered incurable, had no traces of the dis- eases six months after having the treatment. Dr Saar Gill, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, who led the trial, said: ‘Our hope is that this disease is so deeply in remission that it never comes back.’ A second trial showed that the treatment eradicated multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, in 33 out of 35 patients – 94 per cent.
Dr Wanhong Zhao, lead author from Xi’an Jiaotong University in China, said it offers a ‘chance for a cure’.
One patient to benefit from the treatment is Mike Brandon from Bristol. He’s now cancer-free after having CART cell therapy last summer.
The 32-year- old was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in 2014. By last year his bone marrow was made up of 90 per cent cancer cells and he was given weeks to live. Mr Brandon had the treatment after his wife Kate raised £ 450,000 in a social media campaign. He began CAR-T last May and in October was cancer-free.
‘Given weeks to live’