Cancer of the Blood and Bone Marrow Healed by Immunotherapy
Emily Whitehead was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) when she was just five years old. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is a type of cancer of the blood and bone marrow that affects white blood cells, and is most common in children ages three to five. Whitehead needed chemotherapy, but after two years, it was unsuccessful. Her health was rapidly declining, and the local hospital told them to go home and enjoy the days they had left with her. But Whitehead’s parents refused to give up on their daughter and turned to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) for help.. There, they learned about a clinical trial that had just started involving CAR T-cell therapy, which genetically alters a patient’s white blood cells to fight cancer cells. Whitehead’s doctor, Dr. Grub, says this therapy is a game-changer for blood cancers and is a great option for those who relapsed and don’t have their cancer under control. In 2012, Whitehead became the first pediatric patient in the world to receive this type of therapy. Today, she is 17 years old and just celebrated being ten years cancer-free!
“I’m feeling great. I’m really healthy. I’m driving now, I got my driver’s license in January.”
Not all patients who receive CAR T for relapsed ALL reach the same outcome as Emily. Currently, more than 90% of patients who receive CAR T-cell therapy for relapsed ALL go into remission; approximately 50% of those patients will remain cancer free. Researchers are continuing to advance the field so that more patients never relapse. Because CHOP is the pediatric oncology program with the most CAR T experience — having to date treated more than 440 patients, who have come to CHOP from across the globe — the program remains poised to further improve those outcomes.
In addition, Dr. Grupp says there has been a change in thinking surrounding enrollment in clinical trials for cancer patients. Rather than waiting until a patient is nearly out of options to consider experimental treatment options, oncologists are recognizing patients who might qualify for CAR T-cell therapy and other clinical trials earlier in the process. While CAR T-cell therapy is good for blood cancers, doctors and researchers will be spending the next five to ten years trying to figure out how to make this work for other types of cancers such as breast cancer and lung cancer.
Source: https://www.chop.edu/
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