The scientificiblogging.com website has recently published an article on a very promising experimental cancer treatment that is set to begin clinical trials at the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. The treatment involves transplanting specific kinds of white blood cells—known as granulocytes—from selected healthy individuals to cancer patients. Pre-clinical laboratory studies in mice have shown 100% effectiveness and the scientists who are running the trial hope to achieve a similar response in humans.

The treatment is based on the discovery of a mouse that was fully cancer-resistant and whose white blood cells contained cancer fighting properties that even cured cancer when they were injected into other mice. When the scientists looked for similar traits in human white blood cells they were amazed to find them among a subset of healthy adults. Because these cells are not produced by everyone, the scientists need to screen individuals for granulocytes with the specific properties they are looking for. When they find these donors, scientists are then able to draw blood and to separate the granulocytes from the rest of the plasma.

Subsequent research has revealed that people under 50 produce higher amounts of these granulocytes than older people do and that the cancer-fighting activity of the cells is greater in the summer than the winter. This information has been used to develop the research protocol of the clinical trial that is just beginning.

The trial will recruit 500 potential donors of healthy people under 50, all of whom will have their blood tested. From this sample, 100 people will be asked to donate their white blood cells. The granulocytes from these selected donors will then be transfused into the 22 cancer patients who have been enrolled in the study. The researchers are beginning the trial during the summer to maximize the cells’ cancer-fighting abilities. These patients will be closely monitored throughout the trial and their progress will be evaluated for efficacy three months in. Should the trial be considered a success, the researchers will then expand their investigations to see if particular types of cancers respond better to the treatment than do other types.

Labels: cancer