Treating previously untreatable cancers: How CAR-T cell therapy could be made accessible to more patients

CAR-T therapies harvest the patient's own cells, modify them outside the body for treatment and then reinject them into the patient. (Pexels/Karola G)

Cancers that were once considered incurable now have new treatment options. Among these innovations are CAR-T (chimeric antigen receptor T cell) therapies that modify a patient’s T cells, which play an important role in immune systems.

The T cells are modified to induce the expression of a receptor that is capable of recognizing and attacking cancer cells. These therapies have provided therapeutic responses in previously untreatable forms of leukemias and lymphomas.