CAR T-Cell therapy saves leukemia patient in China

A 12-year-old girl from Chongqing, China, Yi Mengdie, was saved by CAR T-cell therapy after conventional treatments such as chemotherapy and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation were not pursued for her acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, a type of cancer in which the bone marrow produces too many immature white blood cells. Yi had a seven-month medical history and had required first-aid six times within a single day due to the rapid deterioration of her disease, but after receiving CAR T-cell therapy on September 18, her fever had subsided and her various health indexes had returned to normal by the time a reporter visited her at Southwest Hospital in October. A total of 25 individuals were treated at the same hospital with this therapy, marking a meaningful step forward in the clinical application of CAR T-cell treatment in China.

CAR T-cell therapy begins by drawing blood from the patient and extracting T cells, which are widely regarded as the immune system's workhorses due to their vital role in coordinating the immune response and killing infected or cancerous cells. Using a disarmed virus, the T cells are then genetically altered to develop chimeric antigen receptors on their surface, allowing them to recognize and adhere to a specific protein or antigen on tumour cells, after which they are expanded into hundreds of millions in the laboratory before being reinfused into the patient. Once back in the patient's body, the engineered cells multiply further and use their specially designed receptors to identify and destroy cancer cells carrying the target antigen, a process that Renier J. Brentjens, an early leader in the CAR T-cell field, memorably described as offering patients "a living medication.