Submitted by Administrator on Wed, 17/02/2016 - 15:30
The researchers genetically modified the t-cells to engineer a new targeting mechanism - chimeric antigen receptors - to target acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.
The early stage trials in today’s reports involved patients with different types of blood cancer – including acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, chronic lymphocyte leukaemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. While these are often very treatable forms of cancer, the patients on these trials had diseases that had become resistant to all other treatments.
Many media reports focused on the patients with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, more than nine in 10 of whom are reported to have entered remission following the immune cell therapy.
The researchers are also reported to have seen similarly impressive responses in around half of patients with the other blood cancers too.
These are indeed truly impressive results.
But these responses – where patients see their symptoms disappear – don’t necessarily mean a patient has been cured. And without a scientific paper to back up the reports, we don’t yet have the full details on these responses rates – notably exactly how they were measured.
More on this story can be found at the CRUK site here.
