CAR-T immunotherapy supports cancer remission for 10 years
The first two patients who received Chimeric Antigenic Receptor Therapy (CAR-T) were still in remission, ten years after treatment. The news suggest that T-cells designed to fight cancer can remain active in the body for longer than though. The results of this study have been published the journal Nature.
CAR-T is a gene therapy in which the patients own are collected, then reprogrammed, with the help of synthetic receptors, to recognised and attack a certain type of cancer, and returned to the patients in order to help them fight that cancer.
Two patients, both with chronic lymphocyticosis, Doug Olson and Bill Ludwig, joined clinical trials of CAR-T in 2010. In their cases the treatment was targeting the CD19 receptors on B-cells. Both patients achieved complete remission in just a few weeks. Over the next ten years neither patient saw their cancer return. According to the research teams “Olson is still feeling well, although Ludwig unfortunately died of COVID-19 in early 2021”.
Researchers noted two key points ten years on:
- CAR-T cells remained detectable ten years later in both men, despite initial expectations for the cells to only like a couple of months.
- The original population of constructed cells consisted mainly of CD8 T-killer cells. Later the CD4 cell population appeared, which then became dominant.
"This long-term remission is wonderful, and the fact that patients are cured of cancer is evidence of the enormous power of this "living medicine", which effectively acts against cancer cells" said study co-author, Jan Joseph Melenhorst of the Penn Institute for Immunology.
Later this year, Emily Whitehead, the first child to receive CAR-T for the treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (LL) will also celebrate ten years of remission from her cancer.
