It concerned a 71-year-old woman, Trouw writes about the investigation. By adjusting her so-called T cells, the tumor and its metastases were reduced to a quarter of the original size. The findings of the oncologists are published in the scientific journal The New England Journal of Medicine.
death sentence
Until now, pancreatic cancer could not be controlled in any way. The disease almost means a death sentence, even immunotherapy can do nothing against it. But now “there is a glimmer of hope for these patients”, says tumor immunologist Kees Melief, professor emeritus at Leiden UMC and scientific director of ISA Pharmaceuticals. He wrote a commentary on the study in the journal.
It is a remarkable, but so far modest success. “We’re not there yet,” says Melief. For example, in a second patient, the adjustment of the T cells did not work.
Scientific interest
The woman’s T cells were modified in a way that they can recognize certain ‘signalls’, a type of protein, in a tumor cell. These proteins indicate when something malicious is happening in a cell. It worked for the woman, but only a few people have the relevant type of semaphore.
That too, according to Melief, is a reason not to cheer too early. If there is a separate treatment for each type of semaphore, it will be expensive and, in his opinion, not interesting for pharmaceutical companies. “For now, this finding is mainly of great scientific importance,” he says.