“Cancer patients treated with a pioneering immunotherapy that genetically modifies their own cells to wipe out tumours live 40% longer, according to ‘exciting’ and ‘groundbreaking’ results from a world-first clinical trial.

Car T-cell therapy is a new form of immunotherapy where a patient’s own T-cells – a type of white blood cell – are tweaked in a lab to target and kill cancer cells. The designer cells are then infused back into their bloodstream to fight the disease.

The therapy has already proved successful in treating blood cancers. Now results from the world’s first randomised controlled trial of Car T-cell therapy in solid tumours suggest it could be transformative in the fight against these cancers too.

Solid tumours represent about 90% of all cancers, including breast, lung and pancreatic cancer.”

From The Guardian.