Home » Leukemia, girl heals 10 years later thanks to new therapy. Doctors had given her a few weeks to live

Leukemia, girl heals 10 years later thanks to new therapy. Doctors had given her a few weeks to live

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Leukemia, girl heals 10 years later thanks to new therapy.  Doctors had given her a few weeks to live

A 17-year-old who was given a few weeks to live while fighting the leukemia at the age of six she recovered. Emily Whiteheadfrom Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, managed to cure the disease 10 years after following one revolutionary therapy. “Raising awareness about treatments like CAR T-cell is really important to me,” he told People. “It’s a miracle that I’m alive – and I’m so grateful».

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The onset of the disease

Emily started chemotherapy in 2010 but relapsed in October 2011 and was given only a 30% chance of survival. Emily’s leukemia progressed rapidly and became increasingly resistant to treatment. By February 2012, her health had deteriorated to the point that she was not eligible for a bone marrow transplant to treat the disease.

The new therapy

After her parents were told they had no options, they led her to seek a second opinion at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Thus Emily became the first pediatric patient in the world to have the CAR T lymphocyte therapya treatment in which the patient’s cells are engineered to attack cancer cells.

Emily was able to beat the odds thanks to an innovative treatment that was made available just when she needed it. Dr. Stephan Grupp, the inaugural director of the Susan S. and Stephen P. Kelly Center for Cancer Immunotherapy at CHOP, had just been cleared to open the first Phase 1 study for CAR T cell therapy in pediatric patients with ALL. CAR T cell therapy harnesses the power of a patient’s immune system by redesigning their T cells to attack proteins found on the surface of cancer cells.

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How does it work

CAR T cell therapy is a treatment in which a patient’s cells are designed to attack cancer cells. It involves taking a specific immune cell – known as T cells – from a patient’s blood. T lymphocytes help the body fight infections by looking for viruses and other pathogens before killing them. These cells are then modified in the laboratory to express a gene that codes for a specific receptor that binds to a protein on the patient’s cancer. Once these cells are reinfused into a patient’s blood, their immune systems are “reprogrammed” to recognize and fight tumors. CAR-T therapy – chimeric T-cell antigen receptor – is therefore personalized for each patient. It is suitable for people with advanced or worsening blood cancers who do not respond to treatment or have a relapse. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved two CAR-T cell therapies in 2017.

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