Every day I am amazed by how far medicine has come. Diseases that were once a death sentence are now able to be treated, giving so many people a second chance at life. One area of medicine I’ve always found particularly interesting is oncology. All of the therapies that have emerged in recent years really show how amazing modern medicine and technology are. Two treatments that showcase this include T-cell and dendritic cell therapy.
Sometimes, T-cells are unable to recognize and destroy cancer cells. T-cell therapy involves removing T-cells from the patient’s blood. The T-cells are there alters to express chimeric antigen receptors (CAR), to better allow the T-cells to recognize cancer cells. The new CAR T-cells are then returned to the patient. The CAR T-cells are now able to multiply and target the cancer cells. This therapy is used to treat lymphoma. Side effects can include anemia, cytokine release syndrome, and neurologic problems including confusion, aphasia, seizures and more. This treatment has an 80% success rate, as of recent data. According to Drugs.com, Yescarta, the CAR T-cell therapy used in adults with lymphoma isn’t cheap, in the US it costs $373,000. Kymriah, the treatment used in children, costs even more at $475,000.
Dendritic cell therapy is another form of cancer treatment that utilizes the body’s own immune cells. Dendritic cells are used to present antigens that activate the body’s T-cells. Several methods have been discovered that work to improve antigen presentation to elicit more powerful immune responses against cancer cells. Dendritic cell vaccinations are an emerging treatment, which consist of injections of dendritic cells combined with tumor associated antigens. Dendritic cell vaccinations have been the subject of numerous clinical trials over the past 20 years with one being approved by the FDA in 2010 for advanced stage prostate cancer. This treatment is called Sipuleucel-T also known as Provenge. Provenge has an expected cost of $93,000 with a median survival of 4.1 months longer than men who did take the drug. Common side effects include headache, fever, fatigue, and nausea lasting only one to two days.
These therapies use the patients own cells and have considerably less side effects that chemotherapy. They offer great promise to those suffering from cancer and their loved ones. I just hope that in the future, the cost of these therapies will decrease to make them more accessible to the average person.
Microbiology by Madeline 