The blood cells of cancer patients, reprogrammed by doctors to attack their leukemia and re-infused back into the patients’ veins, led to complete remissions in 27 of 30 people. That’s especially exciting because those patients had failed all conventional treatments.
The report, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, is an extension of data presented previously at the American Society of Hematology’s annual meeting. Not all of the remissions lasted, the report showed. Nineteen patients in the study remain in remission 2 to 24 months later, and 15 of them didn’t need any additional treatment. Seven patients relapsed between 6 months and 9 months after their infusion; those included three people whose cancers spread beyond the blood cells the new treatment targets. Five patients left the study for alternative therapy.
The numbers are remarkable because these patients had cancer return as many as four times before they joined the study, including some whose cancer had returned after stem cell transplants, said Carl June, the leader of the research team and an immunotherapist at the University of Pennsylvania. In other words, these people were the sickest of the sick.
Read full. original article: Lab-made blood cells hunt cancer, leading to remissions
