Gene Therapy Acheives Promising Skin Cancer Success

Two patients with skin cancer, melanoma, have been in full remission for 18 months, as a result of receiving gene therapy, aimed at genetically engineering the patients' own white blood cells, so that they can identify and destroy cancer cells, say scientists from the National Cancer Institute, USA.


NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., said "These results represent the first time gene therapy has been used successfully to treat cancer. Moreover, we hope it will be applicable not only to melanoma, but also for a broad range of common cancers, such as breast and lung cancer."


You can read about this in the journal Science, September 1 issue.


The scientists aimed to boost the function of T-lymphocytes - white blood cells that identify and destroy cells that should not be in the body (foreign cells). For patients with advanced cancer their T-Lymphocytes are not very effective.


The patients' normal lymphocytes were extracted, genetically modified so that their ability to fight cancer was enhanced, and then placed back. The scientists hoped the modified cells would gradually replace the patients' less effective lymphocytes and attack the cancer cells with more vigour.


Two of seventeen patients with advanced melanoma soon went into a sustained remission, and have remained so for a year-and-a-half - quite an acheivement for gene therapy.


Even for the other 15 patients who did not respond so well, their modified T-cells still remained in their immune systems for months. Those 15 patients did not respond well because this procedure was so new nobody really knew the best was to do it. In other words, the research is still in its early stages, say the scientists. I fact, they were surprised that anyone would respond as well.


"Cancer Regression in Patients After Transfer of Genetically Engineered Lymphocytes"

Richard A. Morgan, Mark E. Dudley, John R. Wunderlich, Marybeth S. Hughes, James C. Yang, Richard M. Sherry, Richard E. Royal, Suzanne L. Topalian, Udai S. Kammula, Nicholas P. Restifo, Zhili Zheng, Azam Nahvi, Christiaan R. de Vries, Linda J. Rogers-Freezer, Sharon A. Mavroukakis, Steven A. Rosenberg

Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1129003 Published Online August 31, 2006

Click here to view abstract online.


Written by: