New treatment for deadly brain cancer helped shrink a tumour in days (Picture: Mass General Brigham)
A ‘dramatic and rapid’ breakthrough treatment has brought hope that brain tumours could disappear within just five days.
Scientists in the US have reported cases of three patients with glioblastoma – a common and aggressive form of brain cancer – who were successfully treated using a pioneering therapy.
The team at Mass General Brigham treated the patients using CAR-T therapy, a type of personalised therapy that uses their own immune system to target the cancer.
Patients’ T-cells are extracted, before specialists make changes to them and gradually drip them back into their bloodstream.
They are then able to recognise and attack the cancer cells.
The three people in the clinical trial – known as INCIPIENT – were treated with CARv3-TEAM-E T cells, which is a variant of existing CAR-T therapy in which they added additional antibodies before infusing them back into each patient.
During the trial, the patients experienced dramatic reductions in their tumours after a single treatment, with one patient’s tumour nearly regressing entirely.
T-cells attack cancer cells (Picture: Getty/Science Photo Libra)
While the patients generally tolerated the procedure well, nearly all experienced fevers and changes in mental status shortly after the infusion – and the shrinkage was temporary.
Dr Bryan Choi, a neurosurgeon from Mass General Brigham, said: ‘The CAR-T platform has revolutionised how we think about treating patients with cancer, but solid tumours like glioblastoma have remained challenging to treat because not all cancer cells are exactly alike and cells within the tumour vary.
‘Our approach combines two forms of therapy, allowing us to treat glioblastoma in a broader, potentially more effective way.’
One of the patients, 72, saw his tumour reduce by over 60% for six months, while another patient, 57, saw her tumour nearly regress in only five days after a single infusion.
Associate professor Marcela Maus, a director at the institute said: ‘These results are exciting, but they are also just the beginning they tell us that we are on the right track in pursuing a therapy that has the potential to change the outlook for this intractable disease.
‘We haven’t cured patients yet, but that is our audacious goal.’
The study is published in The New England Journal of Medicine.