The Siteman Cancer Center - located in St. Louis, Missouri - is one of the largest cancer centers in the United States. The Center is part of Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine. Siteman Cancer Center has developed a promising new type of immunotherapy in cases of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) that recur after treatment or that never respond to therapy in the first place. For this immune therapy, the NK (natural killer) cells are taken from a donor who is closely related to the patient, usually an adult child, parent or sibling. After separating the donor's NK cells from the rest of the blood, the cells are incubated overnight in a mixture of interleukins 12, 15 and 18. These chemical signals activate the NK cells and "train" them to attack the leukemia cells more effectively when they are encountered in the patient following infusion. To prepare for this NK cell therapy, the patient undergoes chemotherapy to suppress the immune system so that the donor's activated NK cells have the time and space to multiply in the patient's bloodstream and go after the cancer cells. As the patient's immune system recovers, it clears the donor's NK cells from the body, eliminating the possibility of long-term adverse events. To learn more, watch interviews with the doctors & researchers behind this exciting clinical trial - and the patient who benefitted greatly from this treatment.
siteman.wustl.edu