- Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells are a type of immune cell that have been modified to specifically target certain proteins.
- CAR T cell therapy involves “reprogramming” a person’s own immune cells to fight blood cancers. Currently, approved CAR T cell therapies are designed to attack proteins found in cancer cells.
- Now, a preclinical study from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania suggests that CAR T cell therapy may also improve the outcomes of surgical treatment for solid tumors.
In a new study published in the journal Science Advances, researchers used a unique gel containing human CAR T cells on the surgical wounds of mice after partial removal of the tumor.
The scientists reported that in nearly all instances, the CAR T cells effectively destroyed the remaining cancer cells, enabling the mice to survive when otherwise they would have died due to the return of the tumor.
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Surgery can be an effective cure for solid tumor cancers that have not spread. However, it can be challenging for surgeons to determine where the tumor ends and healthy tissue begins.
As a result, many types of cancer can recur after surgery due to remaining microscopic tumor cells.
To address this issue, the researchers tested a new approach that involves applying anti-tumor treatment to the remaining tissue margins right after the tumor is removed to eliminate any leftover cancer cells.
Targeting solid tumors with CAR T treatments has proven to be more challenging, partly due to the size of the tumors and the ways in which they protect themselves from the immune…
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