Two patients treated with an innovative cell therapy that uses immune cells to fight cancer have seen no return of their illness in 10 years, raising hopes of a cure.
The CAR T-cell treatment involves reprogramming a patient’s own immune system cells to target and destroy their cancer.
Two patients who suffered with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia underwent CAR T-cell therapy in 2010 and saw all signs and symptoms of their leukaemia disappear within months of treatment, according to a study published in the journal Nature.
A decade later, both patients still have cancer-fighting T-cells present in their bodies. One of the them, Doug Olson, is able to run half-marathons after his treatment.
In the UK, the therapy is currently available for children and young adults with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) and adults with certain types of lymphoma – both of which are blood cancers.
Professor Carl June, at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia told The Guardian: “We call these cells a living therapy, but it was a big surprise to us that they are still able to kill cancer cells 10 years after infusion.
“We can’t say whether every last cancer cell was gone within three weeks [of treatment], or it could be that they keep coming up like whack-a-mole and then get killed, but we know that these [CAR T-cells] are on patrol. They persist and they are functional.”
Prof Martin Pule, the director of the UCL Cancer Institute CAR T-cell programme, added: “A decade ago, CAR T-cell therapy was a therapeutic approach explored by a very small number of scientists and was considered a fringe approach and unlikely to work.
“This paper shows us that CAR T-cells can give patients with cancers which no longer respond to chemotherapy remissions which last a decade.”
