Immunotherapy to treat cancer gave rise to 2nd cancer in extremely rare case

A photo shows the gloved hands of a scientist who is injecting a pink colored cell culture into a clear bottle. Additional test tubes and bottles can be seen in the background on the table.

In an extremely rare case, a patient who received a cell-based cancer treatment later developed a second cancer that arose from the treatment itself. 

Known as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, the treatment involves harvesting a patient's immune cells and genetically modifying them to target and attack specific types of cancers, including lymphomas, leukemias and multiple myeloma. For many people, the treatment has been life-changing — however, as the first CAR T-cell therapy was only approved in 2017, scientists are still learning about the treatment's benefits and risks.