This is a new advance in medicine. In Normandy, since last November, the Henri Becquerel center in Rouen specializing in the fight against cancer can administer a new treatment: Car-T cells. It is aimed at patients with blood cancer, for whom there is no longer any alternative.
A revolutionary treatment
This gene therapy relies on genetic modification of T cells.”It is a normal cell of the blood system which has the role of defending us from microbes but also from tumors“, explains Professor Fabrice Jardin, head of the hematology department at the Henri Becquerel center in Rouen.
“In a first step, cells are collected from the patient. They are sent to a manufacturing center, it takes three to four weeks for the cells to be modified. Then after they are returned and these cells are reinjected into the patient in the form of a simple transfusion“, explains the professor.
This treatment currently concerns certain types of lymphoma and leukaemia. It allows the cure of 30 to 40% for lymphomas in patients whose other treatments such as chemo have not been effective. “Changing cells, modifying them, reprogramming them to go and destroy cancer cells is revolutionary.“, explains Fabrice Jardin. In the coming weeks, around ten Rouen patients could benefit from this new treatment.