Dr. Stanley Riddell (Riddell Stanley) from Cancer research center Fred Hutchinson (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center) and his colleagues from Pennsylvania, and Pittsburgh universities (University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh) has made significant progress in the development of the treatment of oncological blood diseases. Their proposed therapy, based on the “training” of the immune T cells to attack tumor cells, helped cure patients who had been considered hopelessly ill.
In a clinical trial involved 29 people with a diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia. After treatment with modified T-lymphocytes in 27 patients completely disappeared symptoms of cancer in the bone marrow.
According to one of the employees, the development of this method was conducted more than fifteen years: from the first studies in a Petri dish to experiments on animals and humans.
“I’ll never forget the first patient in which the bone marrow was an enormous amount of cancer cells. But after the treatment I looked in the microscope and could not find a single cancer cell. It’s just fantastic!”
The experts used the immune cells of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia subsequent to their genetic programming. The thus obtained modified T cells contain tumor-specific receptors, allowing us to find cancer cells and destroy them. It is theoretically possible to “teach” immune cells to help in any cancer.
Usually considerable competition between T-lymphocytes and cancer accompanied by fever, General weakness, however, the side effects of the treatment occur a lot easier than chemotherapy or bone marrow transplant.
Stanley Riddell (Riddell Stanley), based on the obtained results, immunotherapy calls “a cornerstone in the treatment of cancer”, although he warns that other existing methods of treatment should not be forgotten.
Currently the laboratory is under the direction of Dr. Riddell is developing the next generation of modified T-lymphocytes, which, as scientists expect, will be more easy to obtain and safe for patients.