Israeli scientists develop groundbreaking treatment for deadly blood cancer

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Scientists in Israel have announced “unprecedented” success in treating myeloma, a hematological disease which has long been considered incurable and which accounts for 10% of all blood cancers and 1% of all types of malignancies, the Jerusalem Post reports.

Developed by oncologists at the Hadassah-University Medical Center in Jerusalem together with, Prof. Cyrille Cohen, head of the immunology and immunotherapy laboratory at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, the groundbreaking treatment is based on genetic engineering technology called Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-Cell Therapy (CAR-T), JPost reports. CAR-T strengthens the patient’s own immune system to destroy the cancer.

More than 90% of the 74 patients treated at Hadassah went into complete remission, JPpost reports. Myeloma patients were previously given only two years to live upon diagnosis.

“Now, in light of the impressive results of CAR-T treatments, it seems that they have many more years to live – and with an excellent quality of life,” Prof. Polina Stepensky, head of the department, told Jpost.

“We have a waiting list of more than 200 patients from Israel and various parts of the world at any given time,” Stepensky said. “Due to the complexity of the production and the complexity of the treatment itself, only one patient a week enters the treatment, which is still being conducted as an experiment.”

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