Fight cancer with your own supercharged white blood cells - T-cell immunotherapy

[Anita]

Basically, they take your own white blood cells out of your body, tweak their DNA in a lab to make them total pros at spotting cancer, and then put them right back in. It's like giving your immune system a custom upgrade so it can hunt down and wreck those cancer cells. This cool treatment is called T-cell immunotherapy (CAR T-cell therapy). It's alive, it's made just for you, and it's pretty game changing.

More about it at Cleveland Clinic: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/17726-car-t-cell-therapy

"Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy treats some types of blood cancer. Scientists create the treatment by adding a lab-made gene to your cancer-fighting T cells. The change helps T cells detect and kill cancerous cells. Healthcare providers may use this treatment when other treatments aren't effective or blood cancer comes back."

[Harry]

This is the summary of Cleveland's content. Seems to be good for blood cancer.

CAR T-cell therapy is an advanced form of immunotherapy used to treat certain blood cancers, particularly when standard treatments have failed or the disease has returned. In this therapy, a patient's own T cells are collected and genetically modified in a laboratory to better recognize and destroy cancer cells. These engineered cells are then infused back into the patient, where they actively target cancer-specific antigens.

This treatment is currently approved for several hematological malignancies, including B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, follicular lymphoma, mantle cell lymphoma, and multiple myeloma. Different FDA-approved CAR T-cell products are designed to treat specific cancer types.

The treatment process begins with leukapheresis to collect white blood cells, followed by laboratory modification of T cells, which can take several weeks. Before infusion, patients receive lymphodepleting chemotherapy to help the body accept the modified cells. The infusion itself is brief and similar to a blood transfusion.

CAR T-cell therapy can cause significant side effects, most commonly cytokine release syndrome and neurological symptoms such as confusion or speech difficulty. Because of these risks, close monitoring is essential, especially in the early post-treatment period.

Despite its risks, CAR T-cell therapy has shown remarkable success in selected patients, offering prolonged remission and, in some cases, cure. It represents a major advancement in the treatment of blood cancers.

[Nath]

Treatment seems to be costly and unaffordable. I know someone whose mother was combating with blood cancer and they took herbal medicine from Chhattisgarh or some other state tribals and somehow, it's working for her though they need to take it periodically. It's not a one-time solution.