CAR T Cell Therapy Looks to be Curative, Long-Term Study Suggests

Patients are still in remission  a decade later, prompting experts to consider it a cure

An experimental therapy that turns a patient's immune cells into heat-seeking missiles, with tumors their target, has proven to be highly successful of the long-term, a study this week in the journal Nature reveals. The University of Pennsylvania lab of Carl June, which pioneered the chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy, found the treatment continued to work in two adult patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia who achieved complete remission in 2010. The study also found that CAR T cells remained detectable after infusion, and that populations of CD4+ T cells emerged in both patients after the start of  treatment, eventually dominating the CAR T cell population.

"We can now conclude that CAR T cells can actually cure patients with leukemia," said Dr. June during a press briefing announcing the Nature results.

You can read more about this advance on Nature News and Comment.