The therapy showed promising results on three patients. (Representational Pic)
An innovative new treatment has shown remarkable regression in the size of the tumour caused by glioblastoma, a highly aggressive form of cancer. As per a CNN report, the hard-to-treat brain cancer has a high fatality rate - only 3-5 per cent of patients diagnosed with this type of tumour survive for more than three years. But the experimental therapy, which reprogrammes a person's own immune system to attack these tumours reported dramatic results. In some cases, tumours have seemingly melted away on brain scans by the next day, the outlet said in its report.
Three studies have observed the new therapy, called CAR-T that is delivered directly to the brain.
"That was shocking to me. That's fast. I mean, whoa!" Dr Otis Brawley, a professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins University and former chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, told CNN. He was not involved in the research.
However, in most cases, the tumours have returned but scientists are confident that with some tweaks, CAR-T will become beneficial to a lot of people.
"They clearly made the tumours shrink, so it's doing something. Now, the hard part starts," said Dr Brawley. "We have a drug that has some activity. We have to figure out how we can maximise that activity," he added.
Science Alert said in a report that the therapy was used on a 72-year-old patient and showed remarkable results.
Under CAR-T, a patient's own T-cells are collected and re-engineered to identify surface markers on the outside of cancer cells before being injected in the body again. It's like employing a local bounty hunter to slip silently through the alleys in search of a wanted villain.
Preclinical laboratory trials found the T-cell-engaging antibody molecule (TEAM) therapy worked as expected at the site of a tumour, even recruiting other regulatory T-cells to join in the fight.
The experiment was carried out on three patients and cancer returned in two patients - a 74-year-old man and 57-year-old woman. But the 72-year-old participant showed no sign of cancer return, only some side effects like fever some nodules briefly appearing in lungs, as per Science Alert.
The research was published in The New England Journal of Medicine.