Understanding CAR T-cell therapy that helped Sam Neill beat cancer
What's the story
Hollywood actor Sam Neill, who played the adventurous Jurassic Park paleontologist, passed away on Monday. He was 78 and had battled stage-three blood cancer for five years. His family confirmed that he died cancer-free. Neill had undergone CAR T-cell therapy, a groundbreaking immunotherapy that helped him beat the disease. Here's what you need to know about this innovative treatment.
Treatment
What is CAR T-cell therapy?
CAR T-cell therapy, or chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, is a type of immunotherapy that treats certain blood cancers when standard treatments fail or the disease relapses.
The treatment involves modifying a patient's own T lymphocytes (T cells) to recognize and destroy cancer cells better.
This process includes collecting a patient's T cells from their bloodstream, introducing a new gene in the lab that enables these cells to produce a special protein called chimeric antigen receptor (CAR).
Mechanism
How does the treatment work?
Under normal circumstances, T cells patrol the body looking for abnormal proteins on infected or cancerous cells.
However, cancer cells can sometimes avoid detection by the immune system.
CAR T-cell therapy gives T cells a new receptor specifically engineered to recognize proteins found on certain blood cancer cells.
Once infused back into the patient, these modified immune cells seek out and destroy cancer cells while continuing to multiply inside the body.
Cancers
When was it 1st approved by the FDA?
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) first approved CAR T-cell therapy in 2017 to treat children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).
Since then, additional CAR T-cell therapies have been approved for adults with several blood cancers, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and certain forms of leukemia.
Neill had participated in a clinical trial for CAR T-cell therapy, which turned out to be successful for him.
Success rate
Success rates of the treatment
CAR T-cell therapy has produced remarkable results for some patients, although it is not a guaranteed cure.
A 2020 study following children treated for ALL found that more than 85% achieved complete remission immediately after CAR T-cell therapy, while 60% remained cancer-free 12 months later.
However, analyses of CAR T-cell research have found that the treatment does not permanently cure every patient and some cancers eventually return despite an initial response.