Health
Doctors: Cancer patients cured a decade after gene therapy – Red Deer Advocate
In 2010, doctors treated Doug Olson’s leukemia with an experimental gene therapy that transformed some of his blood cells into cancer killers. More than a decade later, there’s no sign of cancer in his body.
The treatment cured Olson and a second patient, according to the University of Pennsylvania doctors, who said it was the first time the therapy had been studied for so long.
“I’m doing great right now. I’m still very active. I was running half marathons until 2018,” said Olson, 75, who lives in Pleasanton, California. “This is a cure. And they don’t use the word lightly.”
His doctors describe the two cases in a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. They say the two examples show the treatment, called CAR-T cell therapy, can attack cancer immediately, then stay inside the body for years and evolve there to keep the disease at bay. Such so-called “living drugs” are now used by thousands around the world to treat certain blood cancers.
Based on the 10-year results, “we can now conclude that CAR-T cells can actually cure patients of leukemia,” said Dr. Carl June, one of the authors of the study.
The one-time treatment involves collecting the patient’s own T cells, white blood cells key to the immune system, and genetically changing them in the lab so that they will find and attack cancer cells. The modified cells are given back to the patient through IV.
By the time Olson got the treatment, he’d been fighting cancer for years. When doctors diagnosed him with chronic lymphocytic leukemia in 1996, he said, “I thought I had months to live.”
He eventually underwent chemotherapy and, at one point, his physician, Dr. David Porter, suggested he may need a bone marrow transplant. Porter also raised the idea of joining a CAR-T therapy study. Olson, CEO of a New Hampshire lab products company, said he was excited by the science and eager to avoid the transplant.
A couple weeks after getting the treatment, he felt sick for about a week and was hospitalized for three days.
“It was the very next week he sat me down and he said, ‘We cannot find a single cancer cell in your body,” Olson recalled.
The other patient, retired corrections officer Bill Ludwig, had similar results.
Over time, researchers said, the modified cells evolved, many turning into “helper” cells that work with the cancer-killing cells. Helper cells eventually became dominant in both patients.
Study author J. Joseph Melenhorst said they were able to isolate and analyze the cells using new technologies, which gave them “very good insight” into how they persisted in the patients’ bodies.
Dr. Armin Ghobadi of Washington University in St. Louis, an expert in gene and cellular immunotherapy for cancer, called the findings “incredible.” Though the word “cure” is rarely used in cancer, he said it appears these patients were “most likely” cured.
He was intrigued by the persistence of the CAR-T cells and the way the living drug evolves.
“That’s just really beautiful to see,” said Ghobadi, who was not involved in the study.
At this point, June said, tens of thousands of patients are being treated with CAR-T cell therapies, which have been approved for certain blood cancers by health authorities around the world, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The agency first approved a CAR-T therapy treatment in 2017 developed by Penn and the drugmaker Novartis for childhood leukemia.
The Nature study was paid for partly by the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research and partly by National Institutes of Health grants.
Scientists hope to see wider use of CAR-T therapies in the future for other cancers. Last year, a CAR-T cell therapy was approved for multiple myeloma, the most common malignancy of the bone marrow in adults. According to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma were expected to make up just under 10% of the 1.9 million new cancer cases in the U.S. last year.
“But the big scientific challenge – and it’s a big one – is how to make this work in solid cancers,” like those in the lung, colon and other places, June said.
Even in blood cancers, there are challenges. The therapies are expensive, running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars just for the drugs. And there’s the risk of significant side effects, including an immune overreaction called “cytokine release syndrome” and nervous system-related problems such as brain swelling.
Both of the Penn patients did extremely well after the treatment. Ludwig traveled the country with his wife in a motor home and celebrated family milestones before dying early last year of COVID-19 complications.
Olson said he’s extremely grateful for the decade of life since doctors used cutting-edge science to save him.
“What’s changed is the dimension of hope. The pace of discovery takes your breath away,” he said. “It’s a brand new world.”
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Laura Ungar, The Associated Press
Health
RCMP warn about benzodiazepine-laced fentanyl tied to overdose in Alberta – Edmonton Journal
Article content
Grande Prairie RCMP issued a warning Friday after it was revealed fentanyl linked to a deadly overdose was mixed with a chemical that doesn’t respond to naloxone treatment.
The drugs were initially seized on Feb. 28 after a fatal overdose, and this week, Health Canada reported back to Mounties that the fentanyl had been mixed with Bromazolam, which is a benzodiazepine.
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Mounties say this is the first recorded instance of Bromazolam in Alberta. The drug has previously been linked to nine fatal overdoses in New Brunswick in 2022.
The pills seized in Alberta were oval-shaped and stamped with “20” and “SS,” though Mounties say it can come in other forms.
Naloxone treatment, given in many cases of opioid toxicity, is not effective in reversing the effects of Bromazalam, Mounties said, and therefore, any fentanyl mixed with the benzodiazepine “would see a reduced effectiveness of naloxone, requiring the use of additional doses and may still result in a fatality.”
From January to November of last year, there were 1,706 opioid-related deaths in Alberta, and 57 linked to benzodiazepine, up from 1,375 and 43, respectively, in 2022.
Mounties say officers responded to about 1,100 opioid-related calls for service, last year with a third of those proving fatal. RCMP officers also used naloxone 67 times while in the field, a jump of nearly a third over the previous year.
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Health
CFIA continues surveillance for HPAI in cattle, while sticking with original name for disease – RealAgriculture
The Canada Food Inspection Agency will continue to refer to highly pathogenic avian influenza in cattle as HPAI in cattle, and not refer to it as bovine influenza A virus (BIAV), as suggested by the American Association of Bovine Practitioners earlier this month.
Dr. Martin Appelt, senior director for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, in the interview below, says at this time Canada will stick with “HPAI in cattle” when referencing the disease that’s been confirmed in dairy cattle in multiple states in the U.S.
The CFIA’s naming policy is consistent with the agency’s U.S. counterparts’, as the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has also said it will continue referring to it as HPAI or H5N1.
Appelt explains how the CFIA is learning from the U.S. experience to-date, and how it is working with veterinarians across Canada to stay vigilant for signs of the disease in dairy and beef cattle.
As of April 19, there has not been a confirmed case of HPAI in cattle in Canada. Appelt says it’s too soon to say if an eventual positive case will significantly restrict animal movement, as is the case with positive poultry cases.
This is a major concern for the cattle industry, as beef cattle especially move north and south across the U.S. border by the thousands. Appelt says that CFIA will address an infection in each species differently in conjunction with how the disease is spread and the threat to neighbouring farms or livestock.
Currently, provincial dairy organizations have advised producers to postpone any non-essential tours of dairy barns, as a precaution, in addition to other biosecurity measures to reduce the risk of cattle contracting HPAI.
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Health
Toronto reports 2 more measles cases. Use our tool to check the spread in Canada – Toronto Star
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Canada has seen a concerning rise in measles cases in the first months of 2024.
By the third week of March, the country had already recorded more than three times the number of cases as all of last year. Canada had just 12 cases of measles in 2023, up from three in 2022.
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