Doctors have cured a woman with a rare form of cancer by injecting her with genetically engineered white blood cells, researchers said Saturday.
The researchers said it was the first successful treatment of its kind, and the results, if confirmed, could lead to vaccines against a specific kind of cancer.Dr. Claudio Bordignon of the Institute of Scientific Research at San Raffaele Hospital cautioned that the treatment's success will have little immediate benefit for most cancer patients.
"For the more common forms of tumors we will still need years, but this technique gives new, valid hopes," he said in announcing his team's results at a news conference in Milan.
The patient suffered from a lymphoma believed to be caused by the Epstein-Barr virus, which causes the more common condition called chronic fatigue syndrome.
The treatment worked because the woman's cancer was one of the few caused by a virus, institute officials said.
Researchers, particularly in the United States, have been looking at gene therapy to fight cancer with mixed results.
The woman developed the tumor in her lymph glands after a bone-marrow transplant.
She could not be treated with conventional therapies and her prognosis was extremely poor, so doctors decided to try the gene therapy, Bordignon said.
Two weeks ago, doctors injected her with lymphocyte T cells drawn from her brother. Two genes were inserted into the cells, a so-called "suicide gene" and a "marker gene," Bordignon explained.
The lymphocytes attacked and killed the cancer cells. Before they could go on to attack healthy cells, the "suicide genes" were activated by a drug injected into the patient and they destroyed the lymphocytes. The "marker genes" allowed doctors to keep track of the lymphocytes' progress.
Lymphocytes are cells formed in lymphatic tissue that are important in the formation of antibodies and the body's defenses against infection.