Gene Therapy Making Waves in Blood Cancer Treatment:

Hematological malignancy is the term given to a class of cancers that attack and affect the blood, bone marrow and lymph nodes. Often, the patients suffering from Leukemia, Lymphomas and Myelomas do not find a lasting cure for their ailment and do not survive the illness.

However, recent developments have pointed to the fact that gene therapy can actually prove to bring unprecedented progress to the treatment of blood cancers. For instance, researchers are much more optimistic that using gene therapy, the blood cells can actually be used as attack cells against the cancer. The experiments so far have given promising results, and patients show no signs of cancer after the treatment. This is true even for serious patients who were suffering from acute lymphocytic leukemia, myeloma, and chronic lymphocytic leukemia and were taking chemotherapies for years:

“Cancer was so advanced in 8-year-old Emily Whitehead of Philipsburg, Pa., that doctors said her major organs would fail within days. She was the first child given the gene therapy and shows no sign of cancer today, nearly two years later.” 

What the doctors are doing is that they are separating the white blood cells from the blood stream in bulk quantities. These cells are then introduced in a lab to a special gene targeting cancer, and then are infused back in the patient’s blood over a period of three days. This way, cancer is treated successfully through a less risky and more productive method than chemos, stem cell or bone marrow transplants. 

Current Gene Therapy is a popular, bi-monthly peer-reviewed journal from Bentham Science Publishers. It is an impact factor journal (5.318) indexed in major abstracting agencies, such as Scopus, EMBASE, MEDLINE/Index Medicus, and Journal Citation Reports etc. Current Gene Therapy publishes major topics concerning basic and clinical applications of gene and cell therapy.http://benthamscience.com/cgt/

The post is based on the article ‘Gene Therapy Scores Big Wins against Blood Cancers” by Marilynn Marchione.