There has been an uprise in Pancreatic Cancer studies regarding the treatment with divergent T cell conventional dendritic cell treatment and how this affects the progression of the disease and immunity. Specifically, radiation therapy and how these techniques can contribute to helping those with pancreatic cancer and tumors of such. While there has not been a direct response or results given that clarify these claims. Today I will specifically be exploring these claims, experiments, and results as I have a close family member that lives with Pancreatic Cancer and am eager to learn more about these motives.
First I will explore exactly what has been done so far. I will be referring to the therapy throughout by its acronym “CAR” which stands for “Chimeric Antigen Receptor” which is the specific therapy T-cell treatment for solid, known tumors in the body. Effects of these treatments have observed very minimal toxicities that are alarming to physicians in the doses prescribed thus far. These treatments can target a wide range and this is the problem that most are worried about. In that, they need them to only affect the solid tumors, nothing else. This requires the treatment to enter only the peripheral tissues where the tumors would be located. This was very interesting for me to learn because I am personally eager to know this information and share it with my family. When I mentioned this treatment to my family member, they has never heard of this or been explained it by a physician as an option. This proved my theory or hypothesis that it is still in the works and not being shared due to its uncertainty. Personally, I believe there is lots of potential here despite some discoveries. Such as, there was a statistic explained that shown those suffering from pancreatic cancer, and proved to have these solid tumors in site where the CAR treatment could be applied lived identical lifespans to those who did not receive the treatment://////. This was not a great statistic to hear. However, all you need is a little hope that is my motto. I chose this topic and illness because it is something that is apart of my life everyday with someone I love going through this. CAR T cells will have different effects on different people due to the specific location of the tumor in the tissues. As I briefly alluded to earlier, those with larger masses will have a more evident location and capacity for the T cells to attack because, like mentioned, one of the main problems with the treatment is finding the tumor and tissues specifically without affecting other places in the body where it can cause harm instead of good. This was easy for me to understand and the articles did a very good job of explaining this.
It is also important to consider which stage of cancer you are in before receiving this treatment. Those who have received CAR therapy and were Stage 1 had little to none escalation with the T Cells from the results. This was shocking to me I figured it would be the opposite. But what do I know! Alongside this statistic they observed an increase in effector cells, which are the short lived immune response cells that are in place to defend the body and this was an important find. Some patients had an increased amount of heterogeneity near the tumor in the tissues where the CAR treatment had responded to. All of this to say, the treatment is very sporadic and there is not a universal result yet found.It is extremely variable. Everyone experiences different side effects and this is not good when it comes to curing cancer…. obviously… Finally, an important known result that has been found is that patients who are experiencing intracellular effects can NOT receive this treatment, it will simply not work. This treatment has a lot of work to get done, but like I said, I am hopeful. Whether it be by T cells and dendritic cells or something completely different I believe a cure is on the way, treatment is coming.
MicroBio 