Think about this. A man with a very specific type of leukemia that kills 60% of the adults who get it gets chemotherapy and it doesn't work. He goes through a more aggressive type of chemotherapy and it doesn't work. It's estimated that his bone marrow is 70% tumor. He goes through a new treatment and in 8 days the cancer is gone! GONE!!
This was an experimental treatment against a very specific type of leukemia, but it holds promise for many things in the future.
"...a type of immune cell called T cells are extracted from a patient, genetically modified, and then reinfused back. In this case, the T cells were engineered to express a receptor for a protein on other immune cells, known as B cells, found in both healthy and cancerous tissue."
They used a virus to transfer the B cell marker protein (name tag) so that they T cells would attack and kill the B cells. It is using our own immune system to fight the cancer. This very well could be the wave of the future.
"Four of the five patients subsequently received additional therapy in the form of a bone marrow transplant, the standard of care for those patients who successfully achieve complete cancer remissions after treatment for relapsed disease. To date, three of the four patients have remained in remission for between five and 24 months. One patient died from complications unrelated to the cancer therapy while in remission."
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