proximity1 Posted December 10, 2012 Share Posted December 10, 2012 The New York Times reports (published 9 December, 2012) "In Girl’s Last Hope, Altered Immune Cells Beat Leukemia" . Last Spring, the article reports, doctors at Children's Hospital of Philidelphia treating Emma Whitehead, (aged 6 at the time) for an advanced case of lymphoblastic lukemia which had not responded to any other treatment resorted to injecting a disabled form of the Human Immuno Virus in a never-before-attempted therapy. In Emma's case, the treatment appears to have been effective and she remains in complete remission at this point. "To perform the treatment, doctors remove millions of the patient’s T-cells — a type of white blood cell — and insert new genes that enable the T-cells to kill cancer cells. The technique employs a disabled form of H.I.V. because it is very good at carrying genetic material into T-cells. The new genes program the T-cells to attack B-cells, a normal part of the immune system that turn malignant in leukemia." .... "The research is still in its early stages, and many questions remain. The researchers are not entirely sure why the treatment works, or why it sometimes fails. One patient had a remission after being treated only twice, and even then the reaction was so delayed that it took the researchers by surprise. For the patients who had no response whatsoever, the team suspects a flawed batch of T-cells. The child who had a temporary remission apparently relapsed because not all of her leukemic cells had the marker that was targeted by the altered T-cells." 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MonDie Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 A general fear with gene therapy is that the patient will develop cancer, but, here, gene therapy is being used to treat cancer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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