Training an immune system to be a ninja warrior to kill cancer

The doctor’s still aren’t 100% sure which part of their strategy worked the way it did but they may have stumbled upon a way to not only put a specific type of leukemia into remission but to totally kill it.

Using a disabled form of H.I.V.-1 to carry cancer-fighting genes into the patients’ T-cells they essentially train a person’s immune system to kill off cancer cells. The type of cancer that this has been tested against in three cases is chronic lymphocytic leukemia. The three patients had run out of any chemotherapy options and this study was still a big risk; but even amazing to the doctor’s, the treatment worked and beyond what any of them were expecting. Two of the men had total remission and the third had a partial remission.

In the case of William Ludwig, a 65 year old retired corrections officer it felt like his life was draining away as he signed up for the study, which was his last chance.

Doctors removed a billion of his T-cells — a type of white blood cell that fights viruses and tumors — and gave them new genes that would program the cells to attack his cancer. Then the altered cells were dripped back into Mr. Ludwig’s veins.

At first, nothing happened. But after 10 days, hell broke loose in his hospital room. He began shaking with chills. His temperature shot up. His blood pressure shot down. He became so ill that doctors moved him into intensive care and warned that he might die. His family gathered at the hospital, fearing the worst.

A few weeks later, the fevers were gone. And so was the leukemia.

There was no trace of it anywhere — no leukemic cells in his blood or bone marrow, no more bulging lymph nodes on his CT scan. His doctors calculated that the treatment had killed off two pounds of cancer cells.

A year later, Mr. Ludwig is still in complete remission. Before, there were days when he could barely get out of bed; now, he plays golf and does yard work.

“I have my life back,” he said.

via New York Times

The treatment, which was recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine and Science Translational Medicine, is still in the study phase with any general treatment protocol still years away.

image courtesy of The New York Times