Genetic Cloning and Immunotherapy Team up to Combat Cancer

Could immunotherapy and cloning be utilized to fight and possibly cure cancer? After a 52 year old man in the UK was injected with his own cloned cancer fighting cells he has been in remission for two years.

150,000 people die of cancer in Britain every year. This epidemic has caused grief world wide, but now there may be a ray of hope. On June 7, 2008 a story on DigitalJournal chronicled the treatment and recovery of a young man using immunotherapy. Immunotherapy has come into the light again in the case of 52-year-old-British- man who also went under immunotherapy treatment and the results have been proven positive. The unnamed man had advanced Melanoma or skin cancer that spread to one lung and his lymph nodes. Scientists isolated a specific type of cell from his natural immune system that had success in fighting off mutated cancer cells. They cloned the cell repeatedly and then injected the man with a massive amount of his own cells. Within 8 weeks of the treatment all traces of the cancer were gone from lymph nodes, lung, and skin. He has been cancer free, or what is considered remission, for two years. The process of injecting substances into the body to boost the immune system during treatment of disease is called immunotherapy. Dr Cassian Yee was happy about the success of the treatment in the patient and has suggested that before it can be proven effective more studies and tests would have to be administered.

Ed Yong, health information manager at Cancer Research UK, said: "It's very exciting to see a cancer patient being successfully treated using immune cells cloned from his own body. While it's always good news when anyone with cancer gets the all clear, this treatment will need to be tested in large clinical trials to work out how widely it could be used."

Immunotherapy has become widely researched in an attempt to treat cancer without such invasive and painful procedures like chemotherapy and radiation. The concept of using ones own immune system to fight of a disease is not new, but has become popular as more people have shown horrid side effects and distaste for chemotherapy and radiation. Experts say the procedure will be difficult but well worth it. The body's natural ability to fight cancer is diminished in the face of the invading mutated cells, however the immunotherapy naturally boosts the immune system giving one's own body a fighting chance. Two other men identified as Mark Ogier, and Thomas "M" also received this treatment while on their death beds. Mark has been cancer free for three years now. Of 93 patients with melanoma treated at US National Cancer Institute 72 per cent have been responsive using their own anti-tumor cells.