Two babies with terminal cancer CURED after 'miracle' treatment

• Two British infants, 11 and 16 months old, have been cured of leukemia
• Both have been in remission for at least a year post-treatment
• London doctors used genetically engineered immune cells to treat the cancer
• This could lead to off-the-shelf cellular therapy at a low cost for future patients

Two babies who were diagnosed with terminal leukemia have been cured using a revolutionary technique, doctors claim.

Layla Richards, 16 months, and an unidentified 11-month-old were injected with genetically engineered immune cells at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital.

The immune cells were designed to attack cancer cells after previous attempts to treat the infants using traditional methods had failed.

A year on, doctors have described the children's response to the treatment as 'almost a miracle' and 'staggering' - hailing it as the world's first successful treatment of cancer.

The experiment raises the possibility of off-the-shelf cellular therapy using donor cells at low cost that could be dripped into patients' veins at a moment's notice.

Treatments using engineered T-cells, commonly known as CAR-T, are fairly new, radical, and not yet sold commercially. But they have shown great success against blood cancers.

The cases received widespread media attention along with a fair share of criticism. Because both babies received chemotherapy, critics say that researchers have failed to show that CAR-T was what cured them.

Stephan Grupp, director of cancer immunotherapy at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, told Technology Review: 'There is a hint of efficacy, but no proof. It would be great if it works, but that just hasn't been shown yet.'


However, Professor Waseem Qasim, a physician and gene-therapy expert who led the tests, reported that both children remain in remission - one 18 months after treatment and one a year after treatment.

Last year, Layla Richards was the first baby to undergo the therapy after being diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL).

About one in 2000 children are diagnosed with ALL every year. Although almost all achieve remission, specialists told Layla’s parents that they had never seen a more aggressive case.

Layla's mother, Lisa Foley, said at the time: 'We didn't want to accept palliative [end-of-life] care and so we asked the doctors to try anything for our daughter, even if it hadn't been tried before.

'I consider ourselves lucky that we were in the right place at the right time to get a vial of these cells.

'Hopefully Layla will stay well and lots more children can be helped with this new treatment.'


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...-stricken-babies-CURED-miracle-treatment.html

 

Absolutely incredible. My niece was diagnosed 3 years ago last month, at the age of 3, with leukemia. Watching what my baby girl went through still brings tears to my eyes to this day. There is simply nothing more painful than watching a baby endure chemo treatments and knowing that as the parent/family, there's not a thing we could do to fix things for her.

God bless these babies and their doctors. Scientific advances are pretty damn incredible.

 

Oh that's right! I forgot about your niece. ( insert <3 button)
Wow..it's three years already?
This definitely must hit home for you then. Absolutely, it is the worst to see a baby suffer with cancer...just gut-wrenching. And it's a beautiful thing to know they and your niece are all together in remission. Bless the babies.

 

Three years flew by, right? She is the most beautiful, eternally positive little girl you'd ever meet. My absolute ray of sunshine! She taught me more about empathy and kindness these last 3 years than anything else in my 32 years prior <3

 

So happy for her.