There is exciting news for those with recurring non-Hodgkin lymphoma and pediatric/young adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia. A new treatment was recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration and is now available for commercial use at Nebraska Medicine. “This is a big home run for patients who have failed every other type of cancer treatment,” says Julie Vose, MD, chief of Hematology/Oncology at Nebraska Medicine.
Nebraska Medicine, which has a nationally recognized lymphoma program, was one of the first centers in the Midwest that provided chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy through clinical trials. The therapy is part of growing treatment options in cancer that harness the body’s own immune system to attack a tumor.
“T cells are white blood cells that help our bodies fight infection and cancer,” explains Dr. Vose. “In some patients with lymphomas and leukemia’s, their T cells don’t recognize the cancer as being abnormal and this allows the cancers to grow. This new therapy allows us to take the patient’s own T cells outside the body and re-stimulate them to fight their own cancer.”
During the first phase of CAR T-cell therapy, the patient’s T cells are collected at an outpatient procedure at the hospital. The cells are then sent to a pharmaceutical lab where they are genetically modified and grown until there are millions of them. The process in the lab takes about two to six weeks. When the cells are returned to Nebraska Medicine, they are placed in a specialized processing center to complete the procedure. In the meantime, the patient receives several days of chemotherapy. The modified CAR T cells are then infused into the patient where they multiply, attack and kill the cancerous cells. The CAR T cells, which remain in the body long after the infusion has been completed, help to prevent the lymphoma or leukemia from relapsing.
“We are really excited about offering this new therapy to our patients,” says Matthew Lunning, DO, Nebraska Medicine hematologist/medical oncologist. “Nebraska Medicine has been involved from the ground floor in developing this therapy and we are now able to offer it on a large scale. Nationwide, patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma who have received this therapy have had a complete remission rate of nearly 40 percent after six months. This is significant as these are patients who have failed other possible therapies available.”
Amy Cheese of Fort Collins, Colorado was at today's news conference to speak on how this therapy saved her life. She received treatment at Nebraska Medicine for non-Hodgkin Lymphoma in November of 2016. The third grade teacher is now back in the classroom and her life has resumed after successful treatment.
The good news is that we are getting better at treating, detecting and managing toxicities and we will continue to improve with more experience. The potential for this new therapy is very promising. We hope to be able to expand it to the treatment of other cancers like multiple myeloma and solid tumors eventually,” says Dr. Lunning.
To find out if you’re a candidate for this new therapy, please call Nebraska Medicine at 402.559.5600 to schedule an evaluation.