New frontier in cancer care: Turning blood into living drugs

[Judi Lynn]

Lauran Neergaard, Ap Medical Writer
Updated 8:32 pm, Monday, June 12, 2017



SEATTLE (AP) — Ken Shefveland's body was swollen with cancer, treatment after treatment failing until doctors gambled on a radical approach: They removed some of his immune cells, engineered them into cancer assassins and unleashed them into his bloodstream.

Immune therapy is the hottest trend in cancer care and this is its next frontier — creating "living drugs" that grow inside the body into an army that seeks and destroys tumors.

 
Looking in the mirror, Shefveland saw "the cancer was just melting away." A month later doctors at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center couldn't find any signs of lymphoma in the Vancouver, Washington, man's body.

"Today I find out I'm in full remission — how wonderful is that?" said Shefveland with a wide grin, giving his physician a quick embrace.

More:
http://www.chron.com/news/science/article/New-frontier-in-cancer-care-Turning-blood-into-11212500.php

[Underground-Panther]

2. I would like to hope everyone could benefit from this

But I fear it will only be for those who are rich enough to buy access to it if we don't do something to stop these murderous republicans.

[Igel]

3. The way they're doing it now, it's specialized.

The important would be treated, and only the important. (That might be the rich; but perks only go to the rich where money = power; where other things equal power, it goes to those wielding those other things. Fidel Castro and Chavez got the best care money could buy, but in a society where money wasn't the deciding factor.)

That kind of treatment is both time consuming, very expensive, and very dangerous. It's not just a really expensive pill: It takes a lab and training to be able to pull it off. Moreover, it seems it doesn't always work. And they haven't tried solid tumors.