Interesting... leukaemia, a world first!

[Neapolitan Ice Cream]

From the New Scientist...

For the first time ever, a person’s life has been saved by gene editing.

One-year-old Layla was dying from leukaemia after all conventional treatments failed. “We didn’t want to give up on our daughter, though, so we asked the doctors to try anything,” her mother Lisa said in a statement released by Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, where Layla (pictured above) was treated.

And they did. Layla’s doctors got permission to use an experimental form of gene therapy using genetically engineered immune cells from a donor. Within a month these cells had killed off all the cancerous cells in her bone marrow.

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...-of-girl-dying-from-leukaemia-in-world-first/

 

[Pea-n-Me]

That’s wonderful news!

 

[fla4fun]

Perhaps one day other cancers can be treated the same way. My dad died from leukemia, even though he fought it hard. It would be wonderful if no one else had to die from the disease.

 

[Neapolitan Ice Cream]

There are more cures every day for this rotten illness. My favourite is where you take a medication, stand in a tube and have laser lights shone over you. The lights stimulates the drugs which fight the cancer exactly where needed.

 

[TipsyTraveler]

This article is from 2015. Ultimately, she was still alive and disease-free 18 months later, beyond that I couldn’t find any more updates. One other girl was also successfully treated the same way. I’m not sure why this treatment doesn’t seem to have become more widespread in the past 8 years.

 

[RUDisney]

I wonder if there are lifelong affects of this treatment like traditional chemo treatments. My DS survived ALL, but his bone density depleted significantly and he still suffers from stomach issues. He has been cancer free for 6.5 years. He was diagnosed when he was 21, but was treated pediatrically with a 3.5 year chemo protocol.