Eleanor Service |
A new cancer treatment has been developed that retrains the body’s immune system to fight cancer. It is causing excitement after more than 90% of terminally ill cancer patients reportedly went into remission.
Patients with leukaemia had white blood cells extracted from them, these cells were then modified in the lab before being put back.
But the data has not yet been published or reviewed and two patients are said to have died from an extreme immune response.
Experts are cautious though, as they said the trial was exciting, but still only “a baby step”.
The news of this new method has leaked into the media, from the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting in Washington DC.
Professor Stanley Riddell, the lead scientist from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle, said all other treatments had failed in these patients and they had only two-to-five months to live. He said to the conference that:
“The early data is unprecedented”
What Does Re-training Mean?
During the trial, cells from the immune system called killer t-cells were removed from many patient. Usually, these cells act like explosives, and destroy infected tissue.
The t-cells were genetically modified by the researchers to engineer a new targeting mechanism to target acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a cancer of the white blood cells. Professor Riddell said:
“Essentially what this process does is, it genetically reprograms the T-cell to seek out and recognise and destroy the patient’s tumour cells.
[The patients] were really at the end of the line in terms of treatment options and yet a single dose of this therapy put more than ninety percent of these patients in complete remission where we can’t detect any of these leukaemia cells.”
One cancer expert, though, told the BBC that they still felt unsure of how significant the study will be, because the data is yet to be released.
There were also some very severe side effects to the treatment. Seven patients developed cytokine release syndrome. It was so serious that they required intensive care. A further two patients also tragically died.
These side effects are much greater than those of the more conventional treatments for leukemia, such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy. These work with most patients.
Dr Alan Worsley, from Cancer Research UK said that even though the field (the field being immunotherapy – harnessing the immune system to attack cancer) was very exciting, “this is a baby step”.
When talking to the BBC he said:
“We’ve been working for a while using this type of technology, genetically engineering cells. So far it’s really shown some promise in this type of blood cancer.
“We should say that in most cases standard treatment for blood cancer is quite effective, so this is for those rare patients where that hasn’t worked.
“The real challenge now is how do we get this to work for other cancers, how do we get it to work for what’s known as solid cancers, cancers in the tissue?”
So although many people are given great hope and excitement by this new research, many remain skeptical and cautious. Until the data is released fully, lots of people are reserving their judgement. This may be a great step towards curing cancer, but it may not. We cannot know at this moment in time.
