China announces low-cost, direct-injection cancer treatment

According to SCMP, Chinese scientists announced that they have found a way to create cancer-fighting immune cells in the human body using gene editing technology, helping to shorten treatment time and cut costs by more than 80% compared to traditional therapy.

Illustration photo.

The new therapy is a variation of CAR-T, a cutting-edge immunotherapy currently used to treat leukemia, asthma, and some autoimmune diseases. Traditional CAR-T requires taking T cells from a patient’s body, growing and genetically modifying them in the lab, and then infusing them back into the body. The process is both expensive and lengthy, with costs that can exceed 1 million yuan (about $139,000) for a single treatment in China.

In a new study published in The Lancet, a team of experts at the Union Hospital of Tongji Medical University (Wuhan) used a genetically modified virus to inject directly into the patient's body. This virus will find T cells and program them to attack cancer cells without the need for intervention outside the body.

The research team asserted: “This is a ready-to-use product, no longer a drug formulated for each individual.”

In a phase 1 trial, the team treated four patients with multiple myeloma – the second most common type of blood cancer – with a single injection. The treatment took just 72 hours, rather than the 3-6 weeks of traditional CAR-T therapy. After a two-month follow-up, two patients achieved strict complete remission (the tumor lesions disappeared), and the other two achieved partial remission (the tumor shrank after 28 days).

A Chinese social media platform specializing in cell therapy called it “a milestone” in the field and said that if tested on a larger scale, the technology could completely change the current “custom medicine” model.

Previously, in June, the US company Capstan Therapeutics also announced the successful testing of a gene delivery system to create CAR-T in vivo on mice, with positive results in controlling tumors. However, China is the first country to apply this technique on humans.

Scientists consider this a breakthrough, opening up great prospects in popularizing immunotherapy to more patients, not only in treating cancer but also chronic diseases such as asthma and autoimmune diseases.

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