CLEVELAND — Researchers at University Hospitals’ Seidman Cancer Center have discovered a way to get life-saving therapy to cancer patients faster than ever before.
They’ve found a way to manufacture CAR-T cells for immunotherapy treatment in 24 to 48 hours, an impactful difference from the previous 5-8 weeks it took.
Dr. Koen van Besien, the head of hematology at Seidman, CAR-T cell therapy is a way to manipulate and re-program the body’s cells to attack cancer cells.
“CAR-T cells are cells that are taken from the patients, changed in the lab, manipulated in the lab to implant a receptor that allows them to recognize the cancer better,” he said.
Those patients then get an infusion of their modified cells.
“When all goes well, the cells start growing, recognizing the cancer and destroying it,” he said.
The treatment is effective for patients of lymphoma and leukemia, but, previously, the turnaround time from lab to patient was too long.
“One of the limitations is that it takes anywhere between three and five weeks to produce these cells,” said Dr. van Besien. “Patients with leukemia, particularly, but also some forms of lymphoma and myeloma are quite ill and they cannot wait for these for that length of time.”
Jack and Judi Boyle, of Mogadore, know all too well that time is of the essence.
In 2018, they had big plans for the future and for retirement life.
“We love cruises, transatlantic cruises,” said Judi.
But they hadn’t planned for a devastating diagnosis. At the time, 65-year old Jack went in for his routine doctor’s appointment and opted in for a full body scan.
“A day later I got a call saying ‘we found something, a mass on the right side of your neck,’” he recalled.
He had an aggressive form of follicular lymphoma. The two put his care in the hands of doctors at University Hospitals and in God.
“I look at it like this, we are on this bus now and God’s driving the bus and we’re going where he takes us and that has been our attitude ever since then,” said Judi.
For more than 4 years he tried different treatments: multiple rounds of chemotherapy, oral drugs, radiation, a stem cell transplant. But nothing worked.
“We’d always do a pet scan to determine if the cancer was gone and it always came back,” he said.
But then his doctors suggested CAR-T therapy.
“They harvest your T-cells, take them to their lab, in this case, and they reprogram them,” said Jack.
His doctors began discussing the CAR-T therapy back in April. In August, for the first time in years, his scan was clear.
Jack and Judi were shocked.
“It wiped out everything,” he said. “After you’ve been going at it for that long and nothing else really worked, this was amazing,” she added.
Dr. van Besien hopes with the faster turn around time of manufacturing the CAR-T cells, more patients can feel like the Boyles.
“The production within 1 or 2 days, really, will help a substantial proportion of patients who otherwise cannot be helped,” he said.
The Boyles have begun making plans again. They’re taking a cruise for the first time in years with their great-granddaughter.
“She’s asked since she was about 4-years old w’hen can I travel with you and Papa’ so we are going to take her on a cruise to Alaska,” said Judi.
The first clinical trial for the faster turnaround time for the CAR-T therapy will begin in November. Dr. van Besien believes if it is successful, it could change the future of immunotherapy.
The cells and research throughout the trial will be in Seidman Cancer Center’s newly expanded Wesley Center for Immunotherapy.
It more than triples the existing onsite cellular therapy space and is made possible due to the $10 million gift from Kimberly and the late Joseph Wesley.
