Glioblastoma, one of the deadliest brain tumors, may have found a worthy adversary. American researchers have developed a new variant of CAR-T therapy, already used successfully against blood cancers, adapting it to the challenge of solid tumors. The results of the first tests on three patients are nothing short of astonishing: rapid and massive regressions of tumor masses. Are we perhaps close to a revolutionary cure?
Forward into battle
Imagine having a personal army of “super-soldiers” ready to fight cancer for you. This is the principle behind CAR-T therapy, the cutting-edge strategy that "trains" the patient's immune cells to recognize and attack the tumor.
Researchers take T cells, the “elite troops” of the immune system, and arm them with chemical receptors (CARs) that can detect cancer cells. Once reinfused into the body, these “enhanced” lymphocytes hunt down the enemy, unleashing a targeted and devastating offensive. Now also on solid tumors.
Brain tumors and glioblastoma tremble: there is the "multitasking" CAR-T
So far, as mentioned, this strategy had only worked well against blood cancers, which are easier to "flush out". Brain tumors, solid ones like the fearsome glioblastoma, are harder bones: the cells that compose them are heterogeneous and know how to camouflage themselves better.
But the team led by Bryan Choi of Mass General Brigham has come up with an ingenious "upgrade": a variant of CAR-T that combines two forms of therapy, broadening the spectrum of action. In practice, they created "multitasking" lymphocytes, capable of recognizing different targets on the surface of the tumor.
If you want, you can find the complete study here.
Mission “search and destroy brain tumors”: accomplished!
The results are nothing short of a miracle. In the first three patients treated, all with relapsed glioblastoma, the enhanced CAR-T has unleashed a veritable blitzkrieg against cancer. I will make the point in an extremely concise way, to try to convey my amazement to you.
- Patient 1: tumor reduced of 18,5% in 2 days, -60,7% in 69 days
- Patient 2: rapid tumor regression.
- Patient 3: tumor almost disappeared in just 5 days.
You got it right: in less than a week, a single infusion of these hi-tech "sentinels" was capable of sending brain tumors that usually wreak havoc into smoke.
Hope is "solid", but reinforcements are needed
Be careful, we cannot scream for a definitive cure. The study involved only three people and it will take a lot more "firepower" to confirm these exciting results.
However, the path taken is the right one. What until yesterday seemed impossible, today knocks forcefully on the doors of medicine. The idea of “reprogramming” our biological army to fight the most insidious cancer is becoming reality.
Brain tumors, and not only, in the crosshairs
Of course, the war on glioblastoma is still long and increasingly precise and powerful "weapons" are needed. But with allies like these “super-lymphocytes,” we can hope that brain cancer will soon be a thing of the past.
And who knows, maybe one day, thanks to this revolutionary approach, we won't be able to say goodbye to other big killers like the breast cancer, lung or pancreas. Science fiction, as we know, can sometimes anticipate the future. And we look forward to living in a world where cancer will be just a bad dream from which we have finally woken up.
