By Marilyn Marchione, AP Chief Medical Writer
CHICAGO (AP) — Doctors are reporting unprecedented success from a new kind of cell and gene therapy for multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that’s on the rise. Although it’s early and the study is small, 35 people, every patient responded to treatment and all but two were in some level of remission within two months.
In a second study of nearly two dozen patients, everyone above a certain dose responded.
Experts at an American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago, where the results were announced on Monday, say it’s rare for any treatment to have such success.
It’s called CAR-T therapy, and involves altering some of a patient’s own blood cells in the lab to contain a gene that targets cancer, and giving them back intravenously.
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