Human Clinical Trials For Colorectal Cancer Treatment Looks Set

Scientist with petri fish

A treatment type that uses patients’ own immune cells to attack cancer looks ready for testing in human clinical trials of advanced colorectal cancer.

This is according to researchers at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States.

According to a study paper in the journal Cancer Immunology Research, the researchers detailed how they tested the treatment, a type of immunotherapy known as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, in mice that were implanted with human colorectal cancer tumours.

It was gathered that the treatment killed off the colorectal cancer tumours and prevented them spreading.

Successful completion of this last preclinical stage means that the next step would be a phase I clinical trial in human patients.

The progress is significant because there are few treatment options for colorectal cancer once it has advanced.

“The concept of moving [CAR T-cell] therapy to colorectal cancer is a major breakthrough,” said director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Centre at Thomas Jefferson University Dr. Karen Knudsen, “and could address a major unmet clinical need.”

Although colorectal cancer is the “third most common” cancer to affect both men and women in the United States, it is the second main cause of cancer deaths.

Estimates suggest that there were 139,992 new cases of colorectal cancer and 51,651 deaths to the disease in the U.S. in 2014, the latest year for official figures.





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