"What's special about the process that we've developed is we activate the cells in a way that no one else had been able to do previously," says immunologist Bruce Levine, Ph.D., of Abramson Cancer Center/University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Doctors remove white blood cells and bring them to the lab. Here, they're multiplied and mixed with beads attached to a protein. When the new cells are put back into the body, they're better able to attack foreign substances, like the cancer.
Levine says, "What we want to do is tilt the balance in favor of the immune system and away from the tumor or lymphoma."
In a study of 16 patients, five went into complete remission, seven had partial remission, and four had their disease stabilize.
"Given that this was a very advanced, very ill population of patients, the responses that we saw were very encouraging for using this technique," Levine says. And it's gratifying to see it work for people like Bauter.
"With what I was diagnosed with 10 to 15 years ago, I would not have had a chance," says Bauter. Not only is he alive, he's getting ready to start college in the fall.
This procedure is not just for lymphoma. Studies are also being done in patients with leukemia, myeloma, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, other solid cancers and HIV.
