Subject: New Technique Marshals Immune Cells To Fight Infection in Leukemia Patients 
Date: Published: 7/10/92 (73 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Technology & Health:
    New Technique Marshals Immune Cells
    To Fight Infection in Leukemia Patients
    ----
    By Michael Waldholz
    Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

    Cancer researchers said they developed a way to marshal
 the body's immune cells to fight off life-threatening
 infections common among patients treated for leukemia and
 other cancers.
    The new technique, while used in boosting the
 infection-fighting immune system of just three test subjects,
 appears to hold much promise for activating the body's
 natural defenses against AIDS and a wide range of cancers.
 The experiment is just one of a host of new so-called
 immunotherapy treatments being tested as a way to mobilize
 specific cells within the immune system against disease.
    The scientists, at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research
 Center in Seattle, said they literally supercharged patients'
 immune systems with certain white blood cells, which normally
 destroy viruses and bacteria.  The invigorated cells appeared
 to protect leukemia patients, whose weakened immune systems
 make them highly vulnerable to serious infections from
 microbes that aren't usually dangerous.
    In particular, the scientists administered so-called
 cytotoxic, or killer, T-cells to patients undergoing bone
 marrow transplants.  Leukemia is a cancer of white blood
 cells, the major component of the immune system.  An
 increasingly common method for treating leukemia is to blast
 patients with super-high doses of radiation and chemotherapy,
 a process that destroys healthy immune cells as well as
 malignant ones.  Patients are then given new bone marrow from
 a compatible donor, usually a sibling, to reinvigorate the
 downed immune system.
    But one of the greatest threats to patients undergoing the
 procedure is infection during the weeks in which the new
 marrow has yet to produce enough germ-fighting cells.  In the
 new experiment, researchers led by Stanley Riddell and Philip
 Greenberg isolated killer T-cells that healthy individuals
 normally produce when exposed to cytomeglovirus, which can
 cause a fatal pneumonia to people lacking adequate immunity.
    The killer cells, harvested from the same donors providing
 bone marrow, were cultured in a special broth of white-cell
 growing material.  Then extra-large amounts of the killer
 cells were injected into immune-weakened leukemia patients.
 In a report in today's issue of Science, researchers said the
 killer cells produced no worrisome side effects when given to
 three leukemia patients.  Moreover, 12 weeks after the
 therapy, the killer cells retained their ability to target
 the virus, and the patients remained free of infection.
    Dr. Riddell said the experimental technique must be tried
 in many more patients before its true usefulness is known.
 Moreover, at present the technique is too expensive to gain
 wide use.  Still, Dr. Riddell and his colleague, Dr. Greenberg
 at the University of Washington, are expected to use their
 technique to identify killer cells that can be targeted
 against specific tumor cells and proteins within the AIDS
 virus.
    In recent years, Steven Rosenberg, a cancer researcher at
 the National Cancer Institute, has helped pioneer the concept
 of immunotherapy.  His efforts, some of which rely on endowing
 T-cells with special cancer-fighting power, have had varying
 degrees of success.  The field is considered promising, but
 highly experimental.

[This article is made available here by Dow Jones Co. for the
 personal and non-commercial use of callers to this bbs, in the
 hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering
 from the disease and others who are seeking to help them.]