Thanks to a pioneering treatment, some patients with lymphoma are being cured in a miraculous way. CAR-T therapy, a treatment that genetically reprograms the immune system to fight cancer, is a “living drug” that is tailor-made for each cancer patient, using the patients’ own cells. The personalized medicine is already saving lives.
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The process of CAR-T therapy begins by taking blood from the patient, specifically to draw white blood cells, called T-cells. The cells are then frozen in liquid nitrogen and sent to laboratories in the United States. There, the white blood cells are genetically reprogrammed so that instead of killing bacteria and viruses, they will seek out and destroy cancer.
Through this process, they become “chimeric antigen receptor T-cells” or CAR-T cells. Millions of these cells are grown in the lab, then shipped back and infused into the patient’s bloodstream. The entire process takes about a month, and the cancer-killing T-cells stay in the body and continue to grow and work inside of the patient.
The first patient to be treated with CAR-T therapy was Mike Simpson, who was diagnosed with large B-cell lymphoma in 2015. He endured two rounds of chemotherapy, but the cancer returned each time. By the end of 2018, he was given two years to live with his painful condition. While it is still too soon to know if the therapy is completely successful, scans show it is working inside his body.
Data from clinical trials show 40% of patients treated with CAR-T therapy had all signs of their otherwise untreatable and terminal lymphoma eliminated from their body after 15 months of treatment. As far as safety goes, side effects can include fever, vomiting, diarrhea and short-term neurotoxicity, which can lead to confusion, difficulty speaking and loss of consciousness. It may work, but it’s painful.
Unsurprisingly, the treatment is expensive. Made specially for each individual patient, it costs over $350,000. CAR-T has shown promise as a treatment for other blood cancers, including types of lymphoma and leukemia. There is collateral damage involved — CAR-T therapies that target cancer cells also wipe out healthy cells in the process. In order for the therapy to work for other types of cancer, a more precise target would have to be established.