'Adopted Cell Therapy' Shows Success in Fighting Woman’s Bile Duct Cancer

Adopted cell therapy is a form of immunotherapy that scientists recently utilized to fight a woman's cancerous tumors. Immunotherapy in general has been found to treat rare ailments such as melanoma and kidney cancers.

Steven A. Rosenberg is the chief of the Surgery Branch at the National Cancer Institute's Center for Cancer Research who was the senior author of the study published today in the journal Science. Rosenberg and other scientists discovered the new method that specifically attacks tumor cells that have mutations unique to a patient's cancer.

"The researchers demonstrated that the human immune system can mount a response against mutant proteins expressed by cancers that arise in epithelial cells which can line the internal and external surfaces (such as the skin) of the body," the National Institutes of Health said in a news release. "These cells give rise to many types of common cancers, such as those that develop in the digestive tract, lung, pancreas, bladder and other areas of the body."

The adopted cell therapy was performed on a 45-year-old woman from Montana who has bile duct cancer. She received billions of her own immune cells to treat her cancerous tumors, which the researchers believe could be integral in treating different cancers in different patients.

In the adopted cell therapy (ACT), the patient's tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) are collected and examined to determine which posses the best antitumor activity. Then those cells are grown in large numbers and infused back into the patients to continue fighting the tumors more effectively.

The Montana woman experienced stabilization in her lung and liver tumors after the TILs were infused. 13 months later she was re-treated with more TILs and her next follow up revealed tumor regression. Dr. Rosenberg believes that this treatment can revolutionize cancer treatments if the proper cells are harnessed correctly.

"Given that a major hurdle for the success of immunotherapies for gastrointestinal and other cancers is the apparent low frequency of tumor-reactive T cells, the strategies reported here could be used to generate a T-cell adoptive cell therapy for patients with common cancers," said Rosenberg in the same news release.