Novel leukaemia therapy aims to treat sick kids before time runs out
A decade ago, CAR T cell therapy changed the world of cancer treatment, offering a personalised approach to patients with blood cancers such as leukaemia. But getting that specialised treatment to patients is costly and time-consuming. It can take up to two months to harvest a patient’s T cells and reprogram them into cancer-fighters — a non-starter for many young patients with aggressive cancer. WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Loved ones embark on 1500km Jetski trek to raise money for childhood cancer. For more Medicine related news and videos check out Medicine >> These patients “don’t have months or years to live ... they have weeks,” Mayo Clinic Blood and Marrow Transplantation and Cellular Therapies director Dr Mohamed Kharfan-Dabaja said. He was not part of the new research. A novel approach to CAR T (chimeric antigen receptor T cell) therapy aims to cut down that turnaround time significantly. Instead of reprogramming each patient’s cells, researchers are testing the safety of usi...