Posted by Michael Wonder on 14 Sep 2017
Tragedy, perseverance, and chance — the story of CAR-T therapy
13 September 2017 - In 2010, 5-year-old Emily Whitehead was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Though her parents were told that if you had to have a kid with cancer, acute lymphoblastic leukaemia was the best one to have, Emily’s course was hardly typical.
After two rounds of chemotherapy, necrotising fasciitis developed in both legs and she barely avoided amputation. Sixteen months later, she had a relapse. Bone marrow transplantation was recommended, but the Whiteheads, concerned about toxic effects, sought a second opinion at Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania. There they learned about a new therapy, developed by University of Pennsylvania investigators and known as CART-19, which involved genetically engineering the patient’s own T cells to kill tumour cells.
