Spontaneous Remission Cancer Breakthrough

T Cell Immune therapy ishighly personalized treatment, labour-intensive and requires laboratory expertise. Each lymphocyte preparation is uniquely created for each patient and this makes it difficult to commercialize. Where to get the anti-tumor T cells? Blood banks have been providing stem cells for clinical studies, and might also serve as a source foranti-tumour T cells.

Does this mean the end of cancer? I hope so.

Links and References

(1) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC164507/
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003 May 27; 100(11): 6682--6687.
Spontaneous regression of advanced cancer: Identification of a unique genetically determined, age-dependent trait in mice. Zheng Cui, Mark C. Willingham, Amy M. Hicks, Martha A. Alexander-Miller et al.

We have established and studied a colony of mice with a unique trait of host resistance to both ascites and solid cancers induced by transplantable cells. One dramatic manifestation of this trait is age-dependent spontaneous regression of advanced cancers. This powerful resistance segregates as a single-locus dominant trait, is independent of tumor burden, and is effective against cell lines from multiple types of cancer. During spontaneous regression or immediately after exposure, cancer cells provoke a massive infiltration of host leukocytes, which form aggregates and rosettes with tumor cells. The cytolytic destruction of cancer cells by innate leukocytes is rapid and specific without apparent damage to normal cells. The mice are healthy and cancer-free and have a normal life span. These observations suggest a previously unrecognized mechanism of immune surveillance, which may have potential for therapy or prevention of cancer.