Washington: A new approach to killing cancer cells using a patient’s own immune system has beaten back leukaemia in 88% of adults, US researchers said. The report by scientists in New York offers more good news for the burgeoning field of cancer immunotherapy, which uses a “living drug” hailed by Science magazine as the breakthrough of 2013.
The latest trial, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, involved 16 people with blood cancer known as adult B cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). Out of the 16, 14 adult patients achieved complete remission after their T cells were genetically engineered so that they could focus on eradicating cancer.
Some 1,400 people die of ALL in the United States each year, and while it is among the most treatable cancers, patients often become resistant to chemotherapy and eventually relapse.
Efforts are also ongoing to identify cancer-specific receptor cells that could allow the technique to tackle other types of tumors. In the meantime, the therapy remains expensive, costing around $100,000 per patient, a price tag experts believe will come down once pharmaceutical companies get more involved and the technique becomes more widespread.