New Emerging T Cell Therapy

T cell therapy is a new way of treating different types of diseases especially cancer that is still being explored. One of the types of T cell therapies being used is the CAR T-cell therapy, which involves modifying a patient’s own white blood cells to kill the cancer cells. This type of therapy has been approved for the treatment of large B-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and advanced acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The treatment is also being tested and in clinical trials for many other types of cancers including multiple myeloma. This is really exciting to me that it has been approved to work against some cancers and that further testing is being done for other types of cancer.

Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is a type of cancer that originates in the lymphatic system from tumors that develop from lymphocytes. This type of cancer can be very life threatening and can be hard to stop or treat because it can spread easily to other parts of the body. The advanced acute lymphoblastic leukemia is caused by cancer forming in the immature white blood cells located within your bone marrow and it can only be treated by the CAR T-cell therapy if you are under twenty-five years old. This type of therapy being able to treat blood or lymphatic cancers is revolutionary because it means that there is less chance the cancer will spread to other parts of the body. This would be amazing for cancer patients across the world because as of now these cancers are almost impossible to stop from spreading to other locations in the body.

The first article says CAR T-cell therapy involves taking blood from a patient and separating the T cells and then genetically altering them to have new antigen receptors on their surface. For clinical trials treating multiple myeloma the altered antigen receptors are very important and have not yet been identified but BCMA receptors are currently being tested. It makes sense that it would be very hard to find the correct receptors to use because if those antigen receptors are found in other cells then that could cause more harm to your body. This type of therapy seems like it could be less toxic than other cancer therapies and would allow for the killing of cancer cells over a wide range of area not just one specific part of the body. The first article says that some of the side affects of this treatment is low white blood cell count, low blood pressure, anemia, and some neurological events such as aphasia. It seems like most of the side affects for this therapy can be controlled by other medications and will not greatly affect your livelihood. Overall this new T cell therapy for certain cancers seems to be ground breaking and could save lots of people’s lives in the future.