"Revolutionary" cancer treatment to be offered at Addenbrooke’s Hospital Cambridge – In Your Area

By Alya Zayed

Pictured above: Addenbrookes patient Steve Johnson who received the new treatment. Photo credit: Addenbrooke's Hospital.

A revolutionary cancer treatment that could work on patients not responding to chemotherapy will be offered by Addenbrookes Hospital.

The hospital will be the first in East Anglia to offer CAR-T cell treatment, which puts it in the premier league of cancer centres, said one doctor from Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital.

The pioneering treatment will be offered to patients with some cancers who have relapsed or not responded well to chemotherapy or stem cell treatment - namely, aggressive B-cell lymphomas and acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL).

It is also likely to be offered to cancer patients aged over 70 who are considered to be too high risk to have stem cell transplants.

The new therapy can have extremely positive results, but is used as a last resort because of its unpleasant side effects, such as high fevers and low blood pressure.

CAR-T cell therapy works by re-engineering the patients own immune cells.

Immune cells, which are called T-cells, circulate around the bloodstream seeking out and destroying any intruders, such as infections.

But because cancer cells evolve from our own cells, sometimes T-cells do not identify them as intruders, and leave them alone.

The new CAR-T cell therapy works by harvesting a patients own T-cells. These are sent to a specialist lab, where they are reprogrammed to express a molecule on their surface, called a Chimeric Antigen Receptor, or CAR, that targets them to the cancer.

The reprogrammed cells are grown in huge numbers over a few weeks and then infused back into the patients body, where they seek out and destroy the cancer.

It can be a bit like giving immune cells a Sat-Nav, explained the hospital.

The first patients to be approved for CAR-T cell treatment at Addenbrookes will start having their cells harvested from this week.

Initially, the hospital expects to be able to offer CAR-T cell therapy to around 40 patients a year.

In the future, treatment is likely to be expanded to include patients with other cancers.

Ben Uttenthal, consultant haematologist specialising in CAR-T cell therapy at Addenbrookes, said: This is an exciting new way of treating patients that attacks cancer in a different way from previously available medicines.

Being able to offer CAR-T cell therapy in our armoury against cancer puts us in the premier league of cancer centres.

It is also a testament to the expertise available across many different specialties in Addenbrookes.

Through offering treatments like this, now and in the new Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital, we will be able to benefit cancer patients locally, regionally and nationally.

Until now, patients in East Anglia have had to travel to London for the treatment.

Addenbrookes patient Steve Johnson, from Bourn, south Cambridgeshire, is one of many who went to University College Hospital, London, to take part in a clinical trial.

Steve, whose leukemia had relapsed, said: Having the treatment is not pleasant I had a number of fevers and temperature spikes for two weeks after the CAR-T cells were put back in, but I have absolutely no doubt this treatment saved my life and without it I would not be here today.

I was lucky for me the trial came at the right time. Having the option to explore and provide revolutionary treatments at places like Addenbrookes and the soon to be built Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital, is vital if we are going to rewrite the story of this devastating illness.

The new Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital on the Addenbrookes site was confirmed by the government in October as one of the new hospitals to be built.

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"Revolutionary" cancer treatment to be offered at Addenbrooke's Hospital Cambridge - In Your Area