Our researchers in Italy have discovered a new way to treat acute leukaemia by engineering immune cells taken from healthy donors and using them to target and destroy blood cancer cells. The team hope this could be the start for a brand new way to treat leukaemia in the future.
Our research shows a new treatment strategy that has not been described before. We are now investigating two important aspects that will improve the safety and the efficacy of this therapeutic strategy. We hope to be able to define a new alternative immunotherapeutic strategy that can complement the existing ones, to broaden the options given to patients that may fail after a treatment.
What is blood cancer and is it curable?
There are many different types of blood cancer and survival rates vary quite a lot. Currently, around 70% of people in the UK diagnosed with a blood cancer will survive 5 years or more.
What is acute leukaemia and why is it hard to treat?
Acute leukaemia is a group of blood cancers that affect both children and adults. The most common types are acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) or acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL).
While many patients with acute leukaemia are successfully treated, up to 3 in 10 patients will eventually see their disease return. Once it comes back, people with acute leukaemia often have a poor prognosis and effective therapies are lacking.
One treatment approach for acute leukaemia is the transfer of T-cells (a type of immune cell) from a healthy donor to the patient. This innovative treatment works by enhancing the donor T-cells to give them the tools needed to attack leukaemia cells.
However, T-cell transfer therapy comes with risks and donated T-cells can sometimes end up attacking the patient’s body, leading to a potentially fatal “Graft-versus-Host Disease”.
How could donor T-cells be engineered to cure leukaemia?
Our researchers, led by Dr Giulia Casorati in Italy, have now found a way to engineer donated T-cells so that they can attack cancer cells without the risk of attacking other healthy cells.
They also tested their newly engineered cells in mice, showing that they were able to delay disease progression and inhibit tumour growth in three different types of leukaemia. This will hopefully lead to the development of a new immunotherapy for leukaemia.
For more information on this exciting blood cancer research breakthrough, you can read it online for free, where it was published in the journal Nature Communications.
Immunotherapies are an exciting and promising area of research. While they can achieve impressive results in some patients, many still miss out on the potential benefits of this treatment. Starting new cancer cures like this one offers hope to patients and their families by paving the way for immunotherapies to reach their full potential.
How could this breakthrough help patients in the future?
There are nearly 440,000 new cases of leukaemia diagnosed worldwide each year and less than half of these people will survive for 10 years or more after their diagnosis.
The current therapies for leukaemia are often very successful at treating patients, but many people go on to develop the disease again further down the line. This breakthrough could kick-start a new way to treat patients in the future so that patients have more precious time.
What makes this cancer research different?
As an international cancer research charity, we focus on funding discovery research into any type of cancer, anywhere in the world. Discovery research is the first step towards new cures, when scientists are asking new questions and finding out crucial information about how cancer behaves. This knowledge is important to inform possible new ways to prevent, diagnose or treat cancer.
Dr Casorati impressed us with her innovative idea to improve immunotherapy. Her exciting and creative project has potential to have real impact for patients in the future.
Your blood cancer FAQs
Is blood cancer curable today?
The five-year survival rate for blood cancer in the UK is around 70%. However there are lots of different types of blood cancer and some of them are harder to treat than others. Only around 15% of people diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) will survive for five years or more. Research into AML is crucial to find new ways to cure this deadly disease.
What is acute leukaemia and how is it treated?
Leukaemia is generally categorised as either acute or chronic. Acute leukaemia progresses quickly and aggressively and chronic leukaemia progresses more slowly.
The two most common types of acute leukaemia are AML (acute myeloid leukaemia) and ALL (acute lymphoid leukaemia) named after the type of white blood cell affected.
The treatment a leukaemia patient receives depends on the type of cancer as well as other factors such as how far advanced it is and how healthy the patient is.
What does this new leukaemia breakthrough mean for patients?
This breakthrough reveals a way that immunotherapy could work better for leukaemia patients. This gives us hope that in the future patients will have access to better treatments and more time with their loved ones.
What is the role of immunotherapy in blood cancer research?
Immunotherapy is an exciting new way to treat cancer, but it doesn’t work for all cancers or all patients yet. International cancer research like ours is helping find ways for immunotherapy to help more blood cancer patients.
Professor Jamie Rossjohn and his team in Australia are studying natural killer cells, a type of immune cell that can spot the cancer cells that T-cells miss. He hopes uncovering the genetic differences between NK cells in different patients will help them learn how to use NK cells in immunotherapy.
What can I do to support blood cancer research and new treatments?
By becoming a Curestarter today you can help us reach a day when no life is cut short by blood cancer. Dr Daniel Hodson hopes that the ‘dark genome’ in a common type of lymphoma will reveal the hidden codes that are crucial for the development of this type of blood cancer. By knowing more about how lymphoma starts he hopes to find new ways to stop it in its tracks. With your help researchers like Daniel can explore more brand new cures.
Join our united effort to stop cancer.
There are so many different ways to support our search for new cures. Will you join the 90,000+ Curestarters who are already helping us get closer to a day when no life is cut short by cancer?