A woman who participated in a trial of an innovative immunotherapy for neuroblastoma, a malignant tumor, has been in remission for more than 18 years and does not need further treatment. This is the longest known case of successful treatment with a method called CAR (chimeric antigen receptor) T-cell therapy. write The Guardian.
This type of therapy involves taking T cells (white blood cells) from patients and genetically modifying them to destroy cancer cells.
The study, conducted at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, is one of the first to use CAR T-cell therapy to treat cancer. The first phase of the clinical trial involved 19 children diagnosed with neuroblastoma.
In the 7 years following therapy, 12 patients died of recurrence of their malignant tumor. Of the seven patients who survived, five were in remission but had previously been treated for neuroblastoma (a malignant tumor of the nervous system) with other methods and were at high risk of recurrence.
The other two surviving patients had cancer that was actively spreading during CAR T-cell therapy but later went into complete remission.
One patient stopped participating in follow-up sessions 8 years after treatment. Another patient has been in remission for over 18 years.
"She never needed any other therapy and is probably the longest remission ever seen in a person receiving CAR-T therapy. She subsequently had two full-term pregnancies, resulting in healthy babies," – said the authors of the study.
The team adds that the modified T cells were detectable in some patients more than 5 years after immunotherapy. Professor Helen Heslop from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston (USA) suggested that CAR T cells that persist in the body could fight the cancer if it returned.
The team of scientists says it is now trying to focus on understanding why the therapy works in some patients and not in others, and is also investigating how to help children with certain types of brain tumors.
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