Patients cancer free after new clinical trial

A PIONEERING treatment that edits healthy immune cells to fight cancer has shown promise for patients with a rare and aggressive form of leukaemia that “seemed incurable”.

- BY HANNA GEISSLER Health Editor

Almost two-thirds of those with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia involved in a clinical trial of the treatment — known as BE-CAR7 — now remain disease-free.

It was developed by scientists at Great Ormond Street Hospital and University College London and is an advanced version of an immunotherapy known as CAR T-cell treatments.

Challenging

It typically involves a doctor collecting T-cells from a patient.