ALL STEM CELLS

A cancer treatment that uses genetically modified white blood cells to boost patients’ immune systems has achieved “unprecedented” results in its first clinical trials. Unlike chemotherapies, which attack cancer cells directly, the new method works by taking white blood cells called T-cells from patients, and genetically engineering them so that they target specific cancer cells. After multiplying in a laboratory, the T-cells are then reintroduced into the patient.
When the therapy was tested on patients in the US with various forms of late-stage blood cancer, the results were remarkable: 94% of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia went into full remission; half of patients with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma
achieved similar results.
Experts, however, are urging caution: the research is still to be peer-reviewed; it’s unclear whether it could be used to treat non-blood cancers; and, as has long been the case with immunotherapy (as this form of cancer treatment is known), there are severe side-effects. Two patients in the trials had such severe responses that they died.
Though not a “save-all”, the treatment would make immunotherapy “a pillar of cancer therapy”, predicted Stanley Riddell, a researcher on the trials. See More : The Week Magazine

Source : The Week USA, Feb 2016