Chimeric Antigen Receptor Therapies Continue to Do Well Against Blood Cancers

Chimeric antigen receptor approaches to cancer treatment involve taking a patient's T cells and equipping them with a new receptor that allows the immune cells to target specific characteristics of cancer cells. Despite the usual complications and challenges that tend to occur in the development of immunotherapies, involving potentially dangerous disruption of the immune system, this type of therapy has proven to be highly effective against blood cancers. It remains to be deployed against solid cancers, although researchers are well on their way towards reaching that goal, but there is every reason to expect it to be just as effective in that scenario. In an early clinical trial, 33 out of 35 (94%) patients had clinical remission of multiple myeloma upon receiving a new type of immunotherapy - chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells targeting B-cell maturation protein or BCMA. Most patients had only mild side effects. "Although recent advances in chemotherapy have prolonged life expectancy in multiple myeloma, this cancer remains incurable. It appears that with this novel immunotherapy there may be a chance for cure in multiple myeloma, but we will need to follow patients much longer to confirm that." CAR T-cell therapy is custom-made for each patient. The patient's own T cells are collected, genetically reprogrammed in a lab, and injected back into the patient. The reprogramming involves inserting an artificially designed gene into the T-cell genome, which h...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs