“Extraordinary” Immunotherapy Treatment Shows Promise for Treating Advanced Blood Cancers

“Extraordinary” Immunotherapy Treatment Shows Promise for Treating Advanced Blood Cancers

By Admin at 13 Apr 2016, 17:20 PM


One of the reasons why cancer is so hard to treat is because tumors can evade and overwhelm your immune system. Cancers can inhibit your body’s natural immune response via a variety of mechanisms, which allows the cancerous cells to grow and spread.

T cells are white blood cells your body uses to detect abnormal cells, including cancerous cells. These cells may become exhausted before all of the cancerous cells are eliminated from your body, so researchers are looking for ways to give your T cells the upper hand in the fight against cancer.

A clinical trial being conducted at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has made significant strides in this field, known as immunotherapy. Patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), non-Hodgkin lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia are taking part in the trial and received an experimental “living” immunotherapy.

The treatment involves genetically engineering T cells with molecules called chimeric antigen receptors (CARs). Once “tagged” with CARs, the cells are able to target and destroy tumor cells that have been marked with a target. In essence, the treatment reduces the cancer’s ability to hide from and shield itself from the body’s immune system.

The results have so far been “extraordinary,” according to the researchers, including among some patients that were initially given only months to live. For instance:

  • 27 of 29 patients with ALL showed no trace of cancer in their bone marrow following their infusions
  • 19 of 30 non-Hodgkin lymphoma patients experienced partial or complete responses to the treatment


A Fred Hutchinson news release reported:

“Some of the patients in the trial, which began in 2013, were originally not expected to survive for more than a few months because their disease had previously relapsed or was resistant to other treatments, said Dr. Stanley Riddell, an immunotherapy researcher and oncologist Fred Hutch. Today, there is no sign of disease.

… In some patients, pounds of cancer were eliminated after a single dose of the engineered T cells—Riddell showed examples of patients whose tumors disappeared from imaging scans within weeks of the infusion.”

The treatment is still considered experimental and needs more research before it will be widely available. Already, tweaks have been made in the procedure, including giving the lowest doses of T cells to ALL patients with the highest tumor burdens.

This reduced the risk of serious side effects; before the new process was implemented, seven patients developed serious cytokine release syndrome, which can be life threatening, and two died as a result.

Scientists are currently developing the “next generation of engineered T cells,” which are expected to be safer, among other improvements. Riddell believes immunotherapy is now “a pillar of cancer therapy” and, while not a cure-all, shows immense promise for treating patients with advanced disease. He told Fox News:

"This is extraordinary … This is unprecedented in medicine to be honest, to get response rates in this range in these very advanced patients."

 

 

Sources:

Fred Hutch News Service February 16, 2016
Fox News February 16, 2016


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