MANY Australians with a deadly blood and bone marrow cancer could have their life-expectancy doubled if a one-off procedure was widely available.
This is the finding of a report, by health advisory firm Evohealth, about a treatment where a person's own immune cells (T-cells) are extracted and reprogrammed to seek out and destroy cancer cells when returned to the body.
Research shows that each of these CAR T-cells can kill 1,000 cancer cells.
The CAR T-cell therapy: Is Australia ready, willing and able? report concludes that if the full potential of CAR T-cell therapy was realised for all Australian multiple myeloma patients early in the disease course, it has the potential to prevent 886 deaths among the 2,625 Australians diagnosed with multiple myeloma last year alone.
There could be more than double life expectancy from seven to 15 years on average, and cancer progression delayed for an average of six years compared to 2.4 years with existing treatments.
Patient outcomes could be changed due to superior rates of response to treatment (up to 97%) and remission (no cancer progression in 77% of patients after 12 months).
All this makes for a possible 'functional cure', where the cancer is effectively dormant.
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 09 May 23
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