New Cancer Therapy To Cure 'Incurable' Patients?

A recent report claimed that a new cancer therapy succeeded on degenerating blood cancer cells into remission, a procedure that even chemotherapies and bone marrow transplants failed to do. While there have been numerous updates regarding the continuous search for the cure against the killer disease, the rate of survival among cancer patients has remained low.

Setting aside the downside, it was then pointed out that the new cancer therapy may increase the chance of survival among cancer patients who have already reached the latter stages of the disease. Moreover, reports added that the new method of fighting cancer uses the body's own defense system.

The kind of cancer treatment has something to do with the T cells that work on protecting the good cells of the body while fighting the bacteria and viruses. In the new cancer therapy, it has been determined that T cells can recognize and eliminate cancer cells in a short period of time.

"We're going to have to learn to combine T cell therapy with things like checkpoint inhibitors, which is another very effective form of immunotherapy for some patients with solid tumors," said Dr. Stanley Riddell, according to Huffingtonpost. "Or to engineer T cells in ways that will allow them to function in the immunosuppressive microenvironment."

On the aftermath of Riddell's T cell therapy experimentation, it was said that 93% of the 29 participants who were previously incurable had a complete remission after going through the therapy. An extension of his study, Riddell added another 35 participants with non-hodgkin's lymphome, 65% of them, underwent remission.

"These were all cases that had failed all conventional therapy, so they relapsed after chemotherapy. Many of them had relapsed after an allergenic bone marrow transplant or they just weren't considered candidates for a transplant," he added, as quoted in the news site. "To take an experimental therapy and use it in patients that are this advanced, and to get the results, is really encouraging."

While the demonstration of the therapy gives hope to a lot of cancer patients fighting for their lives to survive, Riddell isn't sure if the treatment will work to all types of people with cancers.