Two people have been "cured" of leukemia more than a decade after receiving a treatment that made the cancer vanish, offering a sign of hope for others with the disease.
A study published Wednesday in the journal Nature explains that the patients, both of whom had chronic lymphocytic leukemia, underwent an experimental treatment in 2010 that is now being described by the researchers as a possible cure for blood cancer.
Researchers say it's the first time the treatment, known as CAR T cell therapy, has been studied in a long-term setting.
The treatment works by modifying the patient's own cells to fight cancer. It focuses on T cells, a type of white blood cell that protects the body from infection by recognizing and destroying harmful substances, such as bacteria and viruses.
During the treatment, T cells are removed from the patient and genetically modified in a lab to include a man-made receptor called a chimeric antigen receptor or CAR, which helps the cells better identify and kill cancer cells. The modified T cells are grown and multiplied in a lab, which could take weeks, and then infused back into the patient's bloodstream.
The study found that not only did the patients achieve complete remission the same year they underwent the CAR T cell treatment, but 10 years after the infusion, both remained in remission with the modified T cells still circulating in their bloodstream and protecting the immune system.
"We can now conclude that CAR T cells can actually cure patients with leukemia," Dr. Carl June, a cancer immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the study's authors, said at a press briefing. "We need many more patients to be followed, but at least in these first two patients with 10-year follow-up, there is no more leukemia."
Doug Olson was one of the patients studied. He was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia in 1996 when he was 49.
"I'm doing great right now. I'm still very active. I was running half marathons until 2018," Olson, now 75 and living in California's Bay Area, told NBC News. "This is a cure. And they don't use the word lightly."
CAR T cell therapies are FDA approved to treat some kinds of lymphomas and leukemias, as well as multiple myeloma, according to the American Cancer Society. Several clinical trials are also ongoing, in the hopes that the treatment can be used against other types of cancer as well.
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