To date, no effective cell therapy for solid cancers has been found. However, initial results from a small clinical trial show that a new cellular immunotherapy approach could effectively treat metastatic solid tumors. Researchers collected lymphocytes from each patient’s tumor as part of the trial. They then used sophisticated molecular characterization techniques to identify and isolate the receptors on these lymphocytes, called T-cell receptors, which recognized specific changes in each patient’s tumor. After genetically sequencing these receptors, they used a retrovirus to insert the receptor genes into normal lymphocytes taken from each patient’s circulating blood. The initial results came from people with metastatic colorectal cancer who had already undergone several previous treatments. Personalized immunotherapy shrank tumors in several patients and prevented tumors from growing back for up to seven months. The results were published on 11 July 2024 in Nature Medicine.
