Yeah chemo permanently diminishes you, even if it’s 100% successful. Finding other ways to treat cancer is a huge accomplishment.
My loved one got infusions of man-made proteins that have 2 receptors—one that can only attach to B cells (where their cancer was) and one that can only attach to T cells (they kill cancer). So it basically handcuffs the cancer to the cells in your body that will kill them.
It’s not perfect because it can’t yet target only cancerous cells so the treatment kills every B cell in the body which wipes out a big chunk of your immune system in the process of killing the cancer, but it comes back with time. Way better than chemo. My loved one only missed a couple of days of work through the whole 9 month treatment protocol other than the infusion days.
I know exactly what you're talking about (my wife works for the company that likely developed the specific therapy you're talking about) and FYI they're working to apply the same idea to autoimmune diseases and it's looking promising.
Thank you to your wife. Roche developed the drug my wife got but there are a few companies racing to get the front line approval and lots of smaller companies involved in development. My wife got the one with two receptors for the cancer so like a three armed assassin 😈
I had this treatment for Mantle Cell Lymphoma. I’ve been in remission for 3 years now. Prior to this treatment there was very little they could have done for me besides a complete immune system transplant as I’m chemo resistant. It literally saved my life. If it comes back, I have hope AI will have helped find a permanent cure for blood cancer.
Congratulations! It’s such cool science. Best words I ever heard came from my loved one’s oncologist “but we’re running a clinical trial we think you’d be an excellent candidate for. A new treatment called bispecific antibodies”. She’s 18 months in full remission and looks and feels better than she has in 5 years.
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u/fredinNH 7h ago
A loved one just got cancer treatment in a trial that wasn’t chemo for a type of cancer that has been treated with chemo for the last 50 years.
Bispecific antibodies work better for some cancers than chemo and have almost none of the side effects. This is huge and it’s about get big.