Groundbreaking Cancer Therapy Used for Autoimmune Treatment

In a paper published earlier this year in the journal Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy, the authors wrote that CAR-T cell therapy has “transformed the treatment of relapsed/refractory (R/R) B-cell malignancies and multiple myeloma.” Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy has also shown evidence in treating solid tumors, according to a recent dispatch from the Mayo Clinic.

While this type of therapy is most commonly associated with cancer treatment, doctors are increasingly using it to address another high-risk condition: autoimmune conditions. That’s what Lauran Neergaard reports in a new article published by the Associated Press.

The article points to the work of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg’s Dr. Georg Schett, who began using CAR-T cell therapy to treat patients with conditions like lupus. One of Dr. Schett’s patients, the Associated Press reports, has been in remission for almost six years.

Lupus is not the only conition that Dr. Schett and his colleagues have used this method to treat. Neergaard reports that they have also seen promising results in using CAR-T cell therapy against both myositis and scleroderma. In one case cited in the article, one patient dealing with both lupus and lymphoma used CAR-T cell therapy to treat both.

Scientists Found a Formal Connection Between Epstein-Barr Virus and Lupus

This could help people living with autoimmune conditions

The authors of a paper published in Bone Marrow Transplantation last year observed that using CAR-T cell therapy to treat autoimmune conditions “may represent a paradigm shift in the management of these challenging conditions.” That said, the authors also raised one concern as potentially affecting this research: the high costs of such treatment, something the Associated Press’s article also brings up. Still, it’s a promising start to a potentially massive change in treating certain medical conditions.

Meet your guide

Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal. At InsideHook, he has…