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A promising study published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine has injected much hope into the cancer research community. The new technique involves readjusting white blood cells to have them directly attack cancer cells.
The study tested the new method on three men with advanced chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Dr. Carl June of the University of Pennsylvania led the effort, which used a novel carrier -- a new mechanism -- to send genes to white blood cells, or "T-cells," directing them to "kill and multiply." It is the first time cells that attack viruses have been rewired to attack cancers in the same way. Of the three test patients, two cancers have been eliminated and the other cancer is much smaller than before. Scientists are now monitoring the extent of remission -- if the cancers will return -- and are hoping to test the method on more forms of cancer as well as on more people, since three patient successes is no definitive cause for celebration.
The only adverse effect of the therapy thus far has been the simultaneous destruction of other infection-battling blood cells, B-cells, but the patients have received treatment for that as well.
Previous efforts to modify T-cells have been largely ineffective, and have left many cancer patients with the dangerous alternative of bone marrow or stem cell transplants. This new study, on the other hand, is being received with cautious optimism.
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