Trial fits attack on melanoma to a T
By boosting the number of T cells in his patients, Patrick Hwu is watching their immune systems defeat cancer.
Cancer suppresses or evades immune system responses to survive, but some T cells manage to find and penetrate it anyway. There just aren¡¯t enough of them to finish the job.
What if you could collect a patient¡¯s tenacious T cells ¡ª white blood cells customized to find and kill a given infection or a type of abnormal cell ¡ª multiply them in the lab, then infuse them back into patients by the billions?
Patrick Hwu, M.D., chair of , leads a clinical trial using this approach for patients whose melanoma has spread to other organs.
¡°We¡¯ve had durable responses, including complete responses, in about half of patients with metastatic melanoma, an impressive result for this group of patients,¡± Hwu says.
In the first part of the clinical trial, patients received infusions of their tumor-infiltrating T cells after receiving high-dose interleukin-2, an immune-system signaling molecule that stimulates T cell activity. Hwu and colleagues reported that 15 of 31 patients had an objective ¡ª or measurable ¡ª response to therapy.
Patients participating in a new arm of the clinical trial also receive an infusion of their own, expanded dendritic cells. These cells present T cells with antigens, which they recognize and attack.
¡°We¡¯re working continually to improve this approach by making it more efficient, effective and available to more patients,¡± Hwu says.
