Two of the top-tier hospitals in the Tampa area will soon offer a new cancer treatment that could potentially replace bone marrow transplants and chemotherapy, with their difficult side effects.
In August, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a protocol known as the “Chimeric Antigen Receptor Therapy” (“CAR-T cell therapy”), for both children and young people up to the age of 25, who are victims of bone and blood cancers such as leukemia. More recently, the agency approved the same approach for adults who have a type of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma known as large B cell lymphoma.
The treatments will be offered to children at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital, located in St. Petersburg. All Children's is the only children's hospital in the state to offer the new protocol. Adults suffering blood cancers will now have the opportunity to receive treatment at Tampa's Moffitt Cancer Center.
The new treatment takes white blood cells from the patient, and, in a laboratory process, “reprograms” them to attack the blood-borne cancer cells rather than any other infection, as they would normally. In the lab, scientists add a CAR, or chimeric antigen receptor, to the patient's T-cells. The modified cells are designed to target a particular protein, CD19, found in cancer cells. The modified T-cells are reintroduced into the body, where they will go after the cancer. Experts hope to have these treatments available within a few months.
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