White blood cells called T-cells are removed from the patient’s blood before being frozen in liquid nitrogen and sent away to labs in the USA.
There, they’re genetically reprogrammed so that rather than killing bacteria and viruses, they now seek out and kill cancer.
Then they’re shipped back to the UK to be infused into the patient’s bloodstream where they’ll hopefully continue to grow and work inside the patient.
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Why are the cells shipped to the USA? Isn’t their socialized medicine superior?
I don’t care what they do. This is wonderful news. Always a negative naysayer in the group.
T-cells are only one type of white blood cells. There are also B-cells, and one other type, I think (I am a musician, not a physician although some people are both. I only learned this stuff in the last couple years as my lymphoproliferative disorder became lymphoma). CAR-T does not treat every type of lymphoma. My doc used straight up rituxan to treat mine. This article was positive, but the treatment is not for every lymphoma.