Emily Whitehead, the first child in the world to receive experimental CAR-T cell immunotherapy.
In May last year, Emily Whitehead posted a photo on the social platform, announcing that she had lived without cancer for 9 years, and her anti-cancer story inspired countless researchers to devote themselves to CAR-T research, and CAR-T immunotherapy also ushered in the possibility of cure for many cancer patients.
In April 2022, another cancer patient named Emily declared herself cancer-free for 7 years, and like Emily Whitehead, she received CAR-T immunotherapy and started a new life.
The patient, Emily Dumler, told her in 2015 that she only had 6 months to live.
Emily Dumler then participated in clinical trials of a breakthrough treatment called CAR-T immunotherapy, after which she was given new life.
Emily Dumler, a lymphoma patient, has survived for 7 years
The CAR-T immunotherapy that treats Emily Dumler is called Yescarta, a breakthrough immunotherapy product.
On October 18, 2017, Yescarta was approved for marketing by the US FDA, becoming the world's first CAR-T cell drug for the treatment of relapsed/refractory large B-cell lymphoma.
In April, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the CAR-T cell therapy drug Yescarta for the second-line treatment of large B-cell lymphoma. Prior to this, Yescarta was only approved for the treatment of adult patients with third-line and above large B-cell lymphoma.
With yescarta on the market, there will be more cancer patients like Emily Dumler getting good treatment.
Today, let's take a look at Emily Dumler's anti-cancer story [1], and take you to understand the star of the anti-cancer community - CAR-T immunotherapy.
01
5 minutes clinical trial treatment, 7 years cancer-free survival
In 2013, Emily Dumler was diagnosed with bleeding disorders and was diagnosed with invasive lymphoma after several months in the hospital.
During this period, she received a number of treatments, but still did not get better.
At this point, the doctor told her that she had only 6 months left to live.
The few lives left, the painful complications, are pulling the nerves of the mother of 3 children.
Emily Dumler after chemotherapy
In July 2015, Emily Dumler resolutely participated in a clinical trial called CAR-T cell therapy.
At the time, her life expectancy was only three months. Because of chemotherapy, her body became very weak, and she also lost a lot of weight.
The CAR-T immunotherapy clinical trial took 5 minutes, after which Emily Dumler was monitored for 9 days in the hospital, during which some intractable side effects occurred, including high heart rate, low blood pressure, and some cognitive problems.
A month later, however, doctors examined Emily Dumler and the scans showed no signs of cancer.
This year, Emily Dumler celebrates her seventh anniversary without cancer. Until now, she has been sharing her story with other patients who need encouragement.
"Of course, CAR-T immunotherapy has given me a new lease of life,"
"I never imagined that I would be such an important person, and now I will talk to patients who have received or are ready to undergo CAR-T immunotherapy, share my personal experiences with them, give them encouragement, answer their questions." Emily Dumler said in an interview.
Emily Dumler (second from left) recovering from health with her family
02
CAR-T immunotherapy:
Use your own immune cells to fight cancer
What is CAR-T immunotherapy?
Speaking of CAR-T immunotherapy, we must first introduce the T cells that help the human body resist foreign enemies, T cells are the main force of the human immune system, responsible for attacking and clearing cancer cells and maintaining human health.
T cells
But many cancer cells will constantly mutate to obtain layers of camouflage, so that T cells think that it is a normal cell, resulting in cancer cells constantly multiplying and spreading, and the body is getting weaker and weaker.
Growing cancer cells
If you can let the T cells cultivate the golden eye of fire, see through the camouflage of cancer cells, re-identify and remove them, won't you get the purpose of treatment? Under this line of thinking, CAR-T cell immunotherapy came into being.
First, the researchers will conduct genetic testing on the patient, analyze the information characteristics of the tumor cells in the patient's body, and then collect blood to extract T cells from it.
Next, the researchers used genetic technology to install the T cells with a positioning navigation device CAR, that is, a chimeric antigen receptor, to upgrade the T cells into "super immune warrior" CAR-T cells.
T cells with modified CAR-T immune cells
This process is equivalent to telling T cells what characteristics and what they look like in dodgy tumor cells, improving the recognition ability of T cells, and when CAR-T cells are cultured in vitro to reach a sufficient number, the researchers inject them back into the patient's body through intravenous veins. A patient typically needs billions or even tens of billions of CAR-T cells.
CAR-T cells have been upgraded through navigation, attack power has also been upgraded, and the number of expansions has increased, CAR-T cells can more accurately and effectively lock on and attack cancer cells in the human body, helping patients recover their health.
CAR-T immune cells kill cancer cells
At present, there are 8 CAR-T immunotherapies on the market, CAR-T therapy is considered a new milestone in human cancer, and more and more patients will benefit from it.
02
How long did those who received CAR-T immunotherapy survive?
In addition to the above-mentioned Emily Domler, there are many patients who have moved to a new life under the treatment of CAR-T immunotherapy and successfully survived for many years, and their anti-cancer stories have brought new hope to many cancer patients.
>> survive cancer-free for 10 years: a month after receiving CAR-T therapy, his leukemia disappeared
This is a patient from New Jersey, Bill Ludwigs, a few years ago unfortunately diagnosed with chronic lymphatic leukemia, after surgery, chemotherapy and other treatment still did not get better, fortunately, Bill participated in the CAR-T clinical trial, a week after the first treatment, Bill had serious side effects, but after a month, the cancer cells in his body gradually disappeared, leukemia also disappeared.
On February 2, 2022, a research team led by Professor Carl June, the father of CAR-T, published a new paper in the internationally renowned journal Nature[2], which detailed the results of the treatment of the world's first two patients treated with CAR-T, one of whom was Bill Ludwigs, who had not detected signs of leukemia for more than 10 years after treatment.
Bill Ludwigs and Carl June, M.D., a pioneer in CAR-T cell therapy
>> cancer-free survival for 5 years: the patient found no active lesions in the body after regular re-examination, and the tumor markers were normal
In 2020, the interventional oncology team of Renji Hospital affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine published an article in the journal Clinical Cancer Research that a patient with advanced liver cancer who received CAR-T treatment survived without tumors for nearly 5 years, and no active lesions were found in the body after regular review, and the tumor markers were normal [3].
At the same time, the results of phase I clinical trials also show that other patients who received the therapy had good tolerance, safety and basic control, rare and serious toxic side effects, and initially showed good clinical benefits.
03
summary
One after another CAR-T cell cure case treatment has brought hope for survival for many patients with refractory diseases, and with the continuous progress of science, it is believed that CAR-T immunotherapy will shine in disease treatment and help more patients get rid of the entanglement of diseases.
As ordinary us, in fact, in addition to relying on the progress of medicine to help ourselves overcome various diseases, we must also prepare for the future, such as storing immune cells in good condition when healthy, and storing a group of the youngest and best-in-state immune cell legions for ourselves, which can not only help you resist aging and improve immunity when needed, but also help you resist diseases in case of emergency.
Resources:
[1]https://shawneemissionpost.com/2022/04/06/emily-dumler-cancer-immunotherapy-144113/
[2]https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2022/february/study-of-penn-patients-with-decade-long-leukemia-remissions-after-car-t-cell-therapy
[3]https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1666551465619998753&wfr=spider&for=p