Innovative cancer therapy shows early promise

Cancer treatment involves early awareness, early prevention, screening/early detection and early treatment. The bacterial defensive mechanism is a renewed interest in cell gene editing simplified by Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) technology.

Now patients with cancers can be treated with new targetted drugs, CART (Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell) and CARNK (Chimeric antigen receptor natural killer) cell treatment for better results. These new treatments involve re-engineering of cancer and immune cells gene edition with molecular scissors.  New and challenging to treat malignancies may now be efficiently managed and treated with few or no side effects with this innovative new treatment.

Recently published trials in The New England Journal of Medicine for refractory and relapsed cases of leukaemia and lymphomas treated with CARNK treatment responded well without the development of neurotoxicity, Graft-Versus-Host Disease (GVHD) and cytokine release syndrome.

Following completion of acceptable dosages of therapy, rapid responses were reported within 30 days. Initial data showed that 70% of patients were in complete remission. After a year, the gene-edited cells survived and grew without causing any adverse effects. Due to the simplistic nature of this treatment, our patients can be treated with a minimum duration of admission to avoid hospital-acquired inflections.

The writer works as a Senior Consultant in the Oncology Department at Enam Cancer Centre, Savar, Bangladesh.
Email: shravanonco@gmail.com