Several children who had aggressive ... remained disease-free years after this treatment, according to an early-stage trial ... An illustration of a brain. ... Brain and spinal cord tumors are the deadliest childhood cancers, and treatments for the most aggressive forms often leave families with few options. Now an experimental immune-cell therapy has cleared an important early hurdle, with several children remaining cancer-free years after receiving the treatment. In an early-stage clinical trial published ... Several children who had aggressive recurrent brain tumors remained disease-free years after this treatment, according to an early-stage trial ... An illustration of a brain. ... Brain and spinal cord tumors are the deadliest childhood cancers, and treatments for the most aggressive forms often leave families with few options. Now an experimental immune-cell therapy has cleared an important early hurdle, with several children remaining cancer-free years after receiving the treatment. In an early-stage clinical trial published last week in Nature Medicine, researchers outline the treatment, called tumor-associated antigen (TAA) T cell therapy, which uses a patient’s own immune cells to target proteins that are commonly expressed by pediatric brain tumors. Such therapies could be especially valuable for brain cancers. Many tumors cannot be completely removed without risking brain regions that control essential functions such as breathing and movement, while the blood-brain barrier makes it difficult for drugs to reach tumors in effective doses. As a phase 1 clinical trial, the study’s main purpose was to determine a safe dose and identify potential side effects rather than to prove that the treatment works. “This study represents an important step toward developing safer and more effective T cell therapies for children with devastating brain cancers. We were encouraged to see lasting clinical benefit in several patients who otherwise had very few options,” said Catherine Bollard, chief research officer at Children’s National Hospital and a co-senior author of the study, in a press release. The treatment works by collecting T cells, the immune system’s frontline cancer-fighting cells, from a patient’s blood. These three had had aggressive cancers that had progressed despite years of chemotherapy, radiation and other existing treatments. More than two and a half years after receiving the T cell therapy, however, all three were reportedly alive, with no need for further treatment.

Original title: “Experimental immune therapy shows promise against deadly childhood brain cancer | Scientific American”