New Melanoma Treatment
Dr. Cassian Lee, Study Leader
Melanoma is a deadly type of cancer in the skin cells that produce the pigments. The cancer is caused by exposure to excessive radiation, and unless caught early, often results in death. New studies are giving cancer researchers hope that "immunotherapy" can someday change that.
A 52-year-old male patient in Oregon was diagnosed with melanoma and given roughly a year to live. He was asked if he would like to participate in an experimental study to treat melanoma, and he agreed. This may have been the best choice he ever made, seeing as how the study saved his life.
The treatment in the study involved "power-charing" the immune system so that it could fight the melanoma. Scientists at one time believed that the immune system was useless in fighting cancer, because cancer was produced by the body itself, and was not a foreign invader.However, about 20 years ago this changed, and it became evident that the immune system could help fight cancer. The question was how.
The Hutchinson Center researchers began focusing on T-cells ( cells guided by the immune system that "attack" things harmful to the body). Even more specific, they scientists located T-cells that were adept to targeting cancer. Blood was drawn from the patients in the study and the T-cells were collected. They were then taken to a laboratory where they could be grown and multiplied. The patients were then infused with nearly five billion T-cells. No chemotherapy or harmful drugs were needed.
The 52-year-old man began seeing serious results within only two months. At the end of those two months, he no longer had any tumors, and two years after the immunotherapy, he had no symptoms at all.
As promising as this sounds, there are some problems. Nine patients were used in the study, and only the 52-year-old man mentioned above had such a success. Researchers hope to continue examining the study, and conduct new studies, to help understand why the other eight patients did not have the same success so that immunotherapy can be improved.
This therapy could mean a lot to millions of people around the world. In the United States alone, 62,000 cases of melanoma occur every single year, and 8,000 people die from melanoma each year.
