Targeted cellular therapy is a new cancer treatment devised and pioneered at the University of Pennsylvania. This new approach to eliminating cancer cells has cured several leukemia patients, but researchers are now questioning whether targeted cell therapy can also beat the odds when faced with other types of cancer.
In the study conducted at the University of Pennsylvania, a number of leukemia patients were subjected to this new treatment mode. All of them were described to suffer from lymphocytic leukemia and had admitted that they took other treatment courses as well but failed.
Researchers Carl June and David Porter recently shared the results of the study at the American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition in New Orleans. In their presentation, June and Porter announced that after being subjected to targeted cellular therapy, 25 out of 29 patients, including 19 children, are now cancer-free. Moreover, they singled out that acute leukemia patients are the ones who readily demonstrated positive response to the treatment. This acute form of the said cancer affects children and adults all the same.
"Those patients were facing certain death," said Cooper, who may not be involved in the study but is also part of a different research team that is currently testing the said approach at MD Anderson.
Generally speaking, targeted cellular therapy is the product of incessant efforts of finding the right mode of treatment that will modify a patient's immune system to eliminate cancer cells. This therapy was made possible by certain genetic advances that allowed doctors to reconfigure T cells and make them target a particular type of cancer cell.
In the Penn study, the researchers technically removed the patients' T cells and genetically altered or "rebuilt" them prior to multiplying the cells for reintroduction to the patients' circulation. Once inside the bloodstream, the T cells will target and destroy all cells with the protein CD19 on their surface. This protein serves as the marker of cancerous B cells found in chronic and acute lymphocytic leukemia.
Among the patients who participated in the research was Doug Olson. Olson was said to have long suffered from chronic lymphocytic leukemia or CLL since 2010. After undergoing targeted cellular therapy, Olson has tested cancer-free.
"The immune system eradicated his tumor. He had pounds - literally pounds - of tumor, and it went away in less than a week. It was an astonishing event that we saw," June said in the presentation.
Following the therapy, patients who were declared cancer-free were monitored by doctors to find out whether relapse is still inevitable. However, 3 years after the treatment, several patients were still reportedly cancer-free, including Olson who does not show signs of CLL anymore. Doctors even said that the early patients have remained in remission.
"There are clues that the T cells continue to kill leukemia cells in the body for months after treatment. Even in patients who had only a partial response, we often found that all cancer cells disappeared from their blood and bone marrow, and their lymph nodes continued to shrink over time," Porter said in a statement. "In some cases, we have seen partial responses convert to complete remissions over several months."
Since targeted cell therapy has shown efficiency in treating leukemia patients, several experts are now attempting to figure out whether the treatment can also target other types of cancer cells without killing vital cells. Since CD19 is present in various types of leukemia and lymphoma, scientists are now gearing for the therapy's application to other cancer types.
Cooper's team is now focusing on whether or not this new treatment can also be used for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Cooper said that although they don't have any substantial evidence yet, they already have a few leads. Meanwhile, other researchers are now attempting to use the said approach for pancreatic and breast cancers as well as glioma, a type of brain cancer.
