Hope for stomach, brain cancer? Cancer-fighting immune therapy works on solid tumours in early trials
Despite a failed bone marrow transplant, Delhi’s Dr. beat his blood cancer after receiving CAR T-cell therapy at Tata Memorial Hospital. Not only did he recover, he was able to go back to work in his outpatient clinic.
He is among those with blood cancer who has benefitted from this cutting edge cancer treatment that re-engineers the body’s own immune cells, enabling them to fight the cancerous ones. Can this therapy now work for strong and hard-to-treat tumours as well?
Earlier this month, there was good news on this front with two studies indicating increase in life span. Positive results from the first ever phase II trial of CAR T-cell therapy for solid cancers — those in the form of gastrointestinal tumours — were published from China.
Another early study on the impact of a double target CAR T-cell therapy on a very difficult-to-treat brain cancer was too published in the US. “With so many people working on the problem, it is possible that we could soon see CAR T-cell therapy for solid cancers.
While the results are unlikely to be as dramatic as we have seen with blood cancers, any hope is good when survival otherwise is just a couple of months,” says Dr Hasmukh Jain, a pro of blood cancers from Tata Memorial Hospital. He collaborated with the IIT Bombay team that developed the countries to begin with CAR T-cell treatment.
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