The story of a girl who received an experimental treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) – the most common type of childhood cancer – and responded to that so that eight months after the April 2012 treatment she is still in remission, has spread around the world. Doctors say they have to see the remission go on for five years before they can say for sure the girl is totally cured and give hope to children and adults diagnosed with leukemia.
Seven-year-old Emma Whitehead was diagnosed with ALL in May 2010. Eighty-five percent of children with ALL are cured after a two-year process of standard chemotherapy, but 15 percent have a type of disease that is resistant to traditional chemotherapy regimens - and that was Emma’s case. After her second round of chemotherapy in February 2012, Emma relapsed, the cancer recurred again. “It was at that point that we made the decision that we needed to go somewhere else,” says Kari, Emma’s father. “We needed to try something new, different and cutting-edge.” Emma was enrolled in a clinical trial at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and found qualified for CTL019 — an experimental T cell therapy for advanced B cell l leukemias and lymphomas. “A subset of cells in the immune system become leukemia. These are called B cells. Another set of cells in the immune system, called T cells, normally recognize and attack invading disease. But in cancers like ALL, the abnormal leukemia cells fly under the radar of the normal T cells that are meant to kill them,” the CHOP says in a statement that explains the experimental treatment. A patient’s T-cells are collected from the blood, and then re-engineered in a lab to recognize and attach to a protein called CD19 that is found only on the surface of B cells. Afterwards, the reengineered T-cells are put back into the patient’s immune system. The staggering fact about the treatment is that it uses a disabled form of HIV to reprogram the immune system. Emma’s first reaction to the treatment was other than anticipated. But with the doctor’s care she managed to recover. Now, eight months after the treatment, Emma has still no disease, though fighting T-cells are still in her body. “The results are dramatic, but it is very early,” said Michael Kalos, director of the translational and correlative studies lab at University of Pennsylvania. “We are actively looking to treat more patients and see how it works.” Ten adult patients and two children underwent the experimental T-cells treatment, nine of them have responded, both children included. However one month after the treatment, the second child relapsed. Researchers are interested in exploring T cell therapy for other types of cancers, Kalos said, citing lung, pancreatic and prostate cancers as three possible targets. According to the World Health Organization, cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for 7.6 million deaths (from all types of cancer, around 13% of all deaths) in 2008. The risk for developing ALL is highest in children younger than 5 years of age. The risk then declines slowly until the mid-20s, and begins to rise again slowly after age 50. Voice of Russia, The Huffington Post, The Telegraph, Cancer.org, Source: Voice of Russia
