Immunotherapy News

ABC News

Scientists make possible cancer breakthrough, use patients' own cells to treat leukaemia

By medical reporter Sophie Scott and Rebecca Armitage

Scientists in the United States may have made a cancer treatment breakthrough, releasing results of trials using a patient's own immune cells to treat leukaemia.
Key points:

• 27 of 29 leukaemia patients successfully treated in new trial
• Immunotherapy method already used for some cancer types
• Scientists say new research is promising, but still early days

Professor Stanley Riddell, an immunotherapy researcher at the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center in Seattle, found using treated immune cells wiped out cancer in 27 of 29 patients with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in one trial.
The patients had previously failed all other treatments.
Cancer was also reduced in six out of seven patients whose cancer had spread.
But there were some serious side effects in the latest trials.
According to reports from Cancer Research UK, seven of the 35 patients in another trial had side effects severe enough for them to be placed in intensive care, and two of the patients died.
The research was presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Washington DC. The early findings have not been published or peer-reviewed by experts.
Dr Alan Worsley from Cancer Research UK said the overall results were promising.
"But it's important to know these are still early stages. These are still early steps towards making this treatment as safe and effective as it can be," he said.
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AUDIO: Doctors excited about 'revolutionary' fourth way to treat cancer (PM)

Immunotherapy is a type of biological treatment that uses substances to stimulate or suppress the immune system to help the body fight cancer, infection, and other diseases.
US researchers described how they took specialised immune cells from patients with blood cancers, re-engineered them in the lab to kill cancer cells, then injected the cells back in the patients' bodies.
The hope would be that ... the immune memory cells would ensure that the cancer would be killed again if it returned.
Nick Peel, Cancer Research UK
The technique is already being used successfully in cancers such as melanoma and non small-cell lung cancer.
In melanoma, immunotherapy has had a massive impact on survival and quality of life for patients, who had failed other therapies.
Nick Peel from Cancer Research UK said one of the most tantalising prospects in the new research was the potential of the cells to "remember cancer".
"The hope would be that, in the case of the cancer patient who responds, the immune memory cells would ensure that the cancer would be killed again if it returned," he said.
"Immunotherapy will be play a huge part in cancer treatment in the future. That's something we know for sure."
It will take larger, long-term studies until scientists can talk about immunotherapy truly offering lasting cures for cancer patients, he said.