A woman has remained in remission for more than 18 years after being diagnosed with advanced pediatric nerve cancer, doctors reported yesterday. Her remission is the longest observed success from an immunotherapy treatment known as CAR-T.
The patient first arrived at a Houston hospital in 2006 at just 4 years old, where doctors diagnosed her with neuroblastoma—a condition in which immature nerve cells become cancerous as they develop. After traditional treatments failed, she enrolled in an experimental trial to receive chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapy. The approach takes a person's own immune system T cells (see overview), equips them with a gene that helps target cancer cells, and reinjects them into the body.
While CAR-T has seen success in treating blood cancers like leukemia, the approach has been less effective in solid tumors like neuroblastoma. Of the 10 others enrolled in the original trial, nine passed away, while one survived for nine years before losing contact with researchers.
See a timeline of CAR-T therapy here.
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