The best way to fight off leukemia
might be just using what patients have had all along. According to USA
Today’s report on Feb. 19, researchers have found success in training
the body’s immune system to fight off cancer.
The study focuses on patients with leukemia who have
relapsed after chemotherapy. For patients like these, who have very few
options, cancer immunotherapy offers hope. In one human clinical trial,
14 of the 16 patients in the final stages of B-cell leukemia went into
remission.
The body doesn’t often recognize cancer cells since they
come from the body tissue. So doctors at Sloan Kettering and other
researchers have been training immune cells to recognize leukemia cells
and kill them. Researchers isolate ‘hunter cells’ or T-cells and
genetically modify them to seek out the tell-tale signs of cancer cells.
The only therapy known for a chance of a cancer-free life
is bone marrow transplant. However, patients who currently have cancer
are ineligible to receive such treatment. Following the cancer
immunotherapy, seven individuals from the clinical trial were then able
to have a bone marrow transplant.
“Revving up” the immune system in this way can have serious
side effects. But Lee Greenberger, chief scientific officer at the
Leukemia and Lymphoma Society says that doctors are able to predict
which patients will react poorly and are able to prevent them from
becoming too ill.
This study is in its very first stage of human research and
much more needs to be done and at a larger scale before too many
conclusions can be reached .But the president of the American Society of
Hematology says progress made against a deadly disease is encouraging.
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