CAR Therapy on T lymphocytes giving new hope to cancer patients

In 2016, Grade 10 student Sally Naser learned that she had cancerous growth in both lungs. He was first diagnosed with a tumor, a type of bone cancer called sarcoma, at the age of 10 years. It was his third relapse.

"One of the doctors' advice was," I think the time has come to take a family vacation, "said Camille Naser, his mother." We said and Sally said, we do not want to take a family vacation, "said Camille Naser, his mother. we were not quite ready to give up. "

There was one last option. Sally joined a trial at Baylor College of Medicine using a therapy called CAR T. First, the doctors removed some of Sally's T cells, white blood cells fighting the infection, and genetically engineered them to recognize her Sarcoma cancer as enemy cells that had to be destroyed. Millions of these new cells were then returned to Sally's body, ready to search for and destroy cancer.

"It just took 20 minutes and they're like, okay, that's all," said Sally Naser.

Of 10 patients, three have stable disease and two, including Naser, have no evidence of cancer. Two CAR T treatments are already approved by the FDA for forms of leukemia and lymphoma. The next hurdle is to prove that it works on solid tumors like lung, colon and sarcoma.

"Solid tumors, many of which are very, very difficult to treat, represent a huge burden of cancer, morbidity and mortality," said Dr. Louis Weiner, of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Naser is now a freshman at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

"It's the longest of years without recurrence," she said. "It gives me hope that you know, the treatment actually worked."