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Living medicine New immunotherapy for blood cancer
For the treatment of blood cancer is often set to a chemo- or radiotherapy. According to health experts, however, it is also possible to use a "live drug" for leukemia. Physicians report a new therapeutic approach that uses cells of the immune system to treat blood cancer.
Treatment depends on the type of leukemia
According to the Cancer Information Service, around 11,500 people in Germany suffer from leukemia every year. It is said to be over 900,000 worldwide. Often, blood cancer is only detected by a chance diagnosis. The treatment of the disease depends on the type of leukemia.
In addition to stem cell or bone marrow transplantation, chemotherapy and radiotherapy play an important role here. However, it is still being researched on therapeutic options for the different forms. For example, scientists from Canada reported that a new treatment for blood cancer thanks to avocados could be possible in the future. The researchers isolated a lipid from the avocado fruit and tested its potential applications in the treatment of the particularly aggressive blood cancer AML (acute myeloid leukemia) and achieved promising results. In a news agency dpa news is now reported on novel immunotherapies, which are considered as a hope for patients whose cancer is not responsive to classical treatments.
Radiation or chemotherapy play an important role in the treatment of blood cancer. But you can also use a "live drug" for leukemia. A new therapeutic approach uses defense cells of the immune system against cancer. (Image: Alexander Raths / fotolia.com) T-cell therapy is currently being tested in the US
It is said that the patient's immune system is directed against the cancer. According to the information, the costly procedures have some impressive results. However, not all patients can be helped. In addition, it can not yet be predicted with certainty who immunotherapy really helps.
The new form of treatment, the so-called T-cell therapy, is currently being tested on patients in the USA. The T-helper cells were also used in practice in the UK. For example, doctors from London's Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) last autumn reported on a small girl who was first healed with a special cell therapy that had never been used before.
Cells destroy blood cancer within a few days
According to the dpa report, immunotherapy uses T cells of the immune system to selectively target malignant cells in patients with advanced leukemia. "It has been known for some years that T cell therapy can be extremely efficient," said Dirk Busch, immunologist at the Technical University of Munich and head of a research group for the development of cell therapeutics.
According to the physician, it is a "living medicine". The T cells are therefore to detect the blood cancer and completely destroy within a few days. However, cancer cells develop defense strategies that make it difficult for T cells to successfully attack them. One of these strategies, according to the agency message, is to make itself invisible to T cells. This is precisely where T cell therapy comes into its own: the cells taken from the patient's blood are genetically modified in the laboratory so that they recognize blood cancer cells and attack them directly.
Help for patients "for whom there was no hope"
"We equip the T cells with a weapon that targets surface features on cancer cells," said Patrick Schmidt, a cancer researcher at the National Center for Tumor Diseases in Heidelberg, who also works on such therapies. The immune cells receive an antibody-like protein molecule that binds to the cancer cells. Subsequently, the cells are replicated in the laboratory and returned to the patient's bloodstream. There they can specifically attack the blood cancer. It is said that the therapy helps most patients in studies.
According to Busch, some are considered cured. In a recent US study, 27 out of 29 leukemia patients no longer have cancer cells in their bone marrow after chemo and cell therapy. "These are fantastic results," said Busch, who was not involved in the investigation. "Especially when you consider that these are so-called out-patient patients, for whom there was no hope anymore".
Life-threatening organ damage can be fatal to patients
However, the intervention in the immune system is associated with risks. Thus, the immune cells can be directed against their own body and release large amounts of inflammatory messenger substances. The weakened patient can be fatal to high fever and life-threatening organ damage. As Busch explained, however, the immune response usually ceases by itself or can be treated well. In addition, patients need to inject antibodies for life in order to protect themselves against infectious diseases. This is because the T cells destroy both the pathologically altered and the healthy B cells, which are also an important part of the immune system. In general, T cell therapy is still in its infancy. "In Germany, the first clinical trials have been approved," said the President of the Paul Ehrlich Institute, (PEI) Klaus Cichutek. The facility is responsible for approving biomedical drug testing. Their approval expert Martina Schüßler-Lenz assumes that the first application for approval will be received by the European Medicines Agency at the beginning of 2017. (Ad)