Terminal Patient is Cancer-Free Through Brazilian Genetic Therapy

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The man will be released from hospital free from cancer symptoms, due to a Brazilian method based on a gene therapy technique discovered abroad and known as CART-Cell.

According to the doctors, 63-year-old Vamberto, a retired civil servant from Minas Gerais, responded well to the treatment. He suffered from lymphoma and took morphine daily. His life expectancy was one year.

However, four days after the treatment, he stopped feeling the severe pain caused by the disease; a week later he was walking again and the cancer went into remission.

“Miraculous”

“This first treatment stage was miraculous,” said hematologist Dimas Tadeu Covas, the coordinator of the Center for Cell Therapy (CTC-Fapesp) and the National Institute of Stem Cells and Cell Therapy, supported by CNPq and the Ministry of Health.

“There is no more evidence of the disease, he had several lymph nodes throughout his body. They are all gone. He had unbearable pain, depended on morphine every day. This is a story with a very happy ending.”

The researchers of the Cell Therapy Center (CTC-Fapesp-USP) of the Hemocentro, connected to the Hospital das Clínicas de Ribeirão Preto, said that the patient is “virtually” free of the disease, but are not talking about a cure yet because the final diagnosis can only be given after five years of follow-up. Technically, the exams point to a “cancer remission”.

Took part in the research

Before coming to the interior of São Paulo, Vamberto tried chemotherapy and radiotherapy, but his body did not respond well to either of them.

In palliative treatment, with the maximum dosage of morphine, he was admitted on September 9th to the Hospital das Clínicas in Ribeirão Preto in great pain, weight loss and difficulty walking.

The tumor had spread to the bones.

His prognosis, according to the doctors, was of less than one year of life. As a final attempt, the doctors included the patient in a “research protocol” and tested the new therapy, so far never used in Brazil.

Treatment

USP researchers – assisted by the Foundation for Research Support of the State of São Paulo (FAPESP) and by the National Research Council (CNPq) – have developed their own procedure for applying the CART-Cell technique, which was developed in the USA, is still recent, in its research stage and is not accessible to the public.

In the USA, commercial therapies have already been approved and may cost over US$475,000.

CART-Cell is a form of gene therapy already used in the United States, Europe, China, and Japan. It consists of the manipulation of immune system cells to fight cancer-causing cells.

CART-Cell’s strategy is to enable body defense cells (T lymphocytes) with receptors capable of identifying the tumor.

The attack is continuous and specific and, in most cases, a single dose is sufficient.

How

Renato Luiz Cunha, one of the study’s coordinators, explained that gene therapy can modify the body’s defense cells to fight those that cause cancer.

“The cells will grow in the patient’s body and will fight the tumor,” said Cunha. “And we have developed a fully Brazilian technology, a treatment that costs more than US$1 million in the United States. We hope it can be accessible to all SUS patients in the future.”

In 2018, Cunha was awarded a prize by the American Association of Hematology (ASH) in the United States to develop this study in Brazil.

Source: G1, Jornal da USP