Patient's own immune cells cure his cancer
Thursday, 19 Jun 2008 16:59
The 52-year-old's cancer was cured with his own immune cells
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A cancer patient in the US has had his skin cancer cured after doctors gave him billions of his own infection-fighting immune cells.
The 52-year-old man had an advanced stage melanoma that had spread to a groin lymph node and to a lung.
Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre treated him by taking some of his immune cells, known as CD4+ T cells, and then multiplying these in a laboratory.
They selected these cells as they believed they would stimulate the body's anti-tumour cells.
Five billion of the cells were put back into the 52-year-old, where they survived for at least 80 days.
Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers report that the entire tumour regressed following the infusion.
Two months later, scans revealed no tumours and the patient remained disease free two years later, when he was last checked.
Despite the successful result, the researchers say it is too early to know how many people could be treated in this way.
"We were surprised by the anti-tumour effect of these CD4+ T cells and its duration of response," said lead researcher Dr Cassian Yee.
"For this patient we were successful, but we would need to confirm the effectiveness of therapy in a larger study."