Now researchers have reported the longest known survival after CAR T-cell therapy for an active cancer, revealing a woman who was treated as a child 18 years ago has remained cancer free.
All five were disease-free at their last follow-up, between 10 and 15 years after the CAR T-cell therapy, although the team note they may already have been cured when the therapy was administered.
Heslop adds that newer forms of CAR T-cell therapy have shown a greater response in recent trials for neuroblastoma, and may also help tackle some types of brain tumour in children.
Prof Helen Heslop, co-author of the research from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, says the trial was one of the earliest to use CAR T-cell therapy for cancer.
Writing in the journal Nature Medicine, Heslop and colleagues report how they recruited 19 children to take part in a phase 1 clinical trial of CAR T-cell therapy for neuroblastoma between 2004 and 2009.
