Innovative immunotherapy clinical trial underway at The University of Kansas Cancer Center

A novel immunotherapy clinical trial underway now at The University of Kansas Cancer Center has enrolled the first patients in the world to receive what many doctors and researchers believe is the future of cancer treatment. The trial turns the patient's own body into a cancer fighting machine. T-cells taken from the patient are modified and multiplied and then given back to the patient through an infusion. The patients in the current trial suffer diffuse large B cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma -- the most common type of lymphoma. CAR T-cell therapy has proven successful in fighting blood cancers and doctors believe it could be adapted to target other cancers like breast and colon.

"Think of 'Pac-Man'," Joseph McGuirk, DO, and medical director of the Blood and Marrow Transplant Program at The University of Kansas Cancer Center said. "The patient's re-engineered cells are trained to chase down the cancer and destroy it."