New Cancer Treatment May Offer Hope to Patients

A new treatment that enables the body’s own immune system to kill cancer may soon be coming to HHC.

The therapy involves removing immune cells from the patient’s bloodstream, genetically reengineering them to recognize and kill cancer and infusing them back into the patient.

An FDA advisory committee recently recommended approval of the treatment for patients with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia that has relapsed or not responded to standard treatments.

“This is an exciting advance that has – and will – save lives,” says Peter Yu, MD, physician-in-chief of the HHC Cancer Institute. “It is part of the growing story of immunotherapy and cancer – we have learned the immune system has so many weapons at its disposal.”

Yu expects the FDA will approve limited use of the immunotherapy, which would then make it available to HHC patients through our partnership with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

“It’s wonderful to have more options for patients who need these type of therapies,” said Hartford Hospital oncologist Mark Dailey, MD. “I expect that this will improve outcomes with a variety of cancers in the years ahead.”

Researchers are also looking at whether this treatment might offer hope to certain patients with “solid tumors.” Yu says scientists want to learn if immunotherapy with reengineered T-cells will be as effective if it has to leave the bloodstream and locate targets in other parts of the body. But, he adds, the treatment may hold promise for use against glioblastoma, the type of brain cancer afflicting Sen. John McCain. The brain has typically been a challenge for standard cancer treatments such as chemotherapy, but immune cells may be better able to enter than brain and attack cancer cells, he explains.