SAUGERTIES BATTLING A BEAST
Teen hopes to beat leukemia once and for all after being admitted to immunotherapy study
Zachary Swart’s family hopes the third time’s the charm in his battle against acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Zachary, 15, had been free of cancer and the need for chemotherapy for two years before he suffered a relapse last November, his mother, Nancy Swart, said Monday. She said the cancer was found during blood work as part of a general pediatric visit.
“So we started with heavyduty chemotherapy,” Swart said. “The goal was to get remission.”
But the chemotherapy did not send the cancer into remission, so the Saugerties family searched for an alternative, and they were lucky enough to get Zachary into a CAR T cell immunotherapy study at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, Swart said.
Swart said the study is a revolutionary way of treating B-cell type acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which is what Zachary has. She said only six or seven pediatric hospitals in the United States
perform the treatment.
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. Zachary first was diagnosed with it when he was 6 years old.
According to Memorial Sloan Kettering’s website, the CART T cell immunotherapy aims to boost the immune system by giving immune cells the information they need to better recognize tumor cells as
foreign and attack them. The technique involves filtering white blood cells called T cells from a patient’s blood and introducing a new gene into those cells.
Zachary participated the study in May, and it was “hugely successful,” Swart said, adding that her son had minimal side effects. She said he now has been in “complete remission” for three weeks and will undergo a bone marrow transplant at Memorial Sloan Kettering.
Swart said her eldest son, Ben, will be Zachary’s
marrow donor. She said Ben is a 10/10 match for his brother, which is the best possible score. Swart said her second son, Gabriel, was a 7/10 match.
Sibling donors have the best chance for a successful transplant, Swart said.
“A week from today, Ben will come down [to Memorial Sloan Kettering] to get his T cells extracted,” she said. In the meantime, Zachary will undergo total body irradiation at the hospital to prepare himself to receive the marrow transplant. After the transplant, it will take approximately
two weeks for the cells to engraft, Swart said.
She said Zachary’s immune system will be at risk during that period, so “I’m going to be like a mother bear and not let anybody in that room who doesn’t need to be.”
Swart said Zachary will need in-patient care at the hospital for four to six weeks and then need to be close to the hospital for several months afterwards. She said her family plans to rent an apartment near the hospital during that time so they can make Zachary
as comfortable as possible.
Ben Swart is studying industrial engineering at the University of Buffalo but will take some time off from his internship to be with Zachary, Swart said. And she said she is taking leave from her job as a pediatric nurse at Albany Medical Center.
The goal is for the CAR T cell treatment and the bone marrow transplant to cure Zachary’s leukemia, Swart said.
“We’re going to beat this beast,” Swart said.