For as long as we've known about it, humans have searched for a cure for cancer. Across the world, countless amounts of time and money have been spent on researching a way to stop this terrible disease. But now, it seems like the answer could have been inside our own bodies the whole time.
Recently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US, a government agency that's responsible for healthcare, approved a new form of gene therapy (疗法) that could mean the end of a certain type of cancer.
The therapy allows scientists to "train" the immune (有免疫力的) cells of sick patients to fight leukemia (白血病)—a form of blood cancer that mostly affects young people.
The exciting new treatment works by removing healthy immune cells from the patient, known as T-cells, which are then changed to be able to "hunt down" cancer cells.
The cells are then put back into the patient before they begin to get rid of the patient's leukemia over time, similar to how the body fights off other illnesses.
"This is truly an exciting new day for cancer patients," Louis J. DeGennaro, president of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, said in a news release.
Up until now, a long and painful marrow transplant (骨髓移植) was the only option for many leukemia patients.
In this procedure, healthy blood cells are taken from a donator and placed into the sick patient, who also has to go through chemotherapy (化疗) to allow their body to adjust to the new cells.
But with a recovery rate of around 83%—according to a news release published by the FDA—it's hoped that the days of painful trips to the hospital, or even death, are over for leukemia sufferers.
"We're entering a new frontier in medical innovation (创新) with the ability to reprogram a patient's own cells to attack a deadly cancer," FDA representative Scott Gottlieb said in the release. "New technologies such as gene and cell therapies hold the potential to transform medicine and our ability to treat and even cure many incurable illnesses."
