Science
At the University Hospital St. Pölten, people with certain types of cancer can now be treated with what is known as CAR-T cell therapy. Therapy can help when conventional therapies have not been successful.
05.27.2023 08.16
Online since today, 4:08 pm
It’s a “revolutionary form of therapy” for cancer, which is now also offered in the UK’s St. Pölten, according to a press release from the state health agency. We are talking about the so-called CAR-T cell therapy. The aim is not to destroy tumor cells with cellular toxins, as is the case with chemotherapy, but to modify and strengthen the body’s own defense system so that cancer is fought in a targeted manner. Therapy is an option for large B-cell lymphomas and acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
In CAR-T cell therapy, certain defense cells are taken from the patient’s body and then genetically modified in order to develop a docking site for tumor cells on their surface. With the help of this receptor, the defense cell finds the tumor cell and can destroy it in a targeted manner. The cells thus modified are multiplied outside the body and then administered to the patient as a “live drug” with an infusion.
Because they are endogenous cells, they survive in the body, where they can multiply and fight tumor cells for long periods of time, according to the transmission. This can sometimes help people who have failed conventional therapies. According to MedUni Vienna, the treatment is successful in around 100 people a year across Austria.
Therapy already shows “spectacular success”
The future importance of CAR-T cell therapy cannot yet be estimated, says Martin Wiesholzer, head of the Clinical Department of Internal Medicine 1 at St. Pölten “We are already seeing spectacular successes. Cellular immunotherapies like these will play an important role in the fight against cancer in the future.” Because the number of diseases that CAR-T cell therapy can be used for is constantly increasing.
In addition to MedUni Vienna, CAR-T cell therapy is also available at MedUni Graz, Medical University of Innsbruck, Ordensklinikum Linz, St. Anna Children’s Hospital, University Hospital Salzburg and Kepler University Hospital in Linz. The fact that it has now also been established in the UK St. Pölten is an “important step forward in treating patients from Lower Austria with innovative and promising cancer therapies”, the responsible provincial councilor Ludwig Schleritzko (ÖVP) is quoted in the broadcast.