Posted by
m0t0r1zed on Wednesday, June 18, 2008 10:18:41 PM
Very interesting!!! I need to read up on this.
Link to news article: http://www.fhcrc.org/about/ne/news/2008/06/18/T_cells.html
Actual paper is in NEJM, June 19 issue.
just an excerpt from the news article (not the journal)
Patient's own infection-fighting T cells put late-stage melanoma into long-term remission — without chemotherapy or radiation
Case is first to show safety and effectiveness of using cloned cells alone to kill tumors
SEATTLE — June 18, 2008 — Researchers describe the first successful use of a human patient's cloned infection-fighting T cells as the sole therapy to put an advanced solid-tumor cancer into long-term remission. A team led by Cassian Yee, M.D., an associate member of the Clinical Research Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, reports these findings in the June 19 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Yee and colleagues removed CD4+ T cells, a type of white blood cell, from a 52-year-old man whose Stage 4 melanoma had spread to a groin lymph node and to a lung. T cells specific to targeting the melanoma were then expanded vastly in the laboratory using modifications to existing methods. The lab-grown cells were then infused into the patient with no additional pre- or post-conditioning therapies, such as growth-factor or cytokine treatment. Two months later, PET and CT scans revealed no tumors. The patient remained disease free two years later, when he was last checked.