Ms. Feng is one of about 100 people here each year who receive cell and gene therapies, thanks to advances in research that are opening up new ways to treat cancer with cells, so-called “vital medicines.”
Cell therapy, a form of precision medicine tailored to meet the specific needs of patients, is a promising new field. For example, studies have shown that CAR T-cell therapy can allow cancer patients to recover faster without the need for aggressive chemotherapy and achieve longer-lasting remissions.
In Singapore, where an estimated one in four people will develop cancer by the age of 75, cell and gene therapies have raised hopes of possible treatment options, starting with some forms of blood cancer.
What is cell therapy?
Associate Professor Danny Soon, interim executive director of the Advanced Cell Therapy and Research Institute of Singapore (Actris), said that cell therapy refers to the use of living cells to treat diseases such as cancer and autoimmune diseases.
Actris is a project under the Singapore Clinical Research and Innovation Consortium (Cris), which brings together research projects from the Ministry of Health.
In CAR T-cell therapy, blood is withdrawn from the body and put through a machine to separate the T cells and return the remaining blood to the body.
CAR is added to T cells, reprogramming and supercharging them to find and kill cancer cells.
“This could be a lifeline for patients who have failed conventional treatments for aggressive leukemias and lymphomas,” said Professor Soon, who is also Cris’s CEO.
Actris chief medical officer Francesca Lim said that in addition to treating this type of cancer, other potential uses of cell therapy include treating degenerative diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis.
“Efforts are underway to treat solid organ tumors, such as nasopharyngeal and liver cancer,” she added.
In Singapore, CAR T-cell therapy is available for some patients under the age of 25 who have relapsed or failed to respond to treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, as well as for some adults with certain types of lymphoma who have relapsed or failed to respond to initial treatment. treat.
As with all medical treatments, there are potential side effects, although they can be managed, Dr. Lin said.
They include severe reactions such as cytokine release syndrome, a hyperaggressive response of the immune system to immunotherapy drugs.