ot a person has had a bone marrow transplant, which many children with refractory ALL have previously undergone. This approach differs from one that, until fairly recently, has often been taken in adults, whereby the harvesting and expansion (increase in numbers) of the cells can take months. Pediatric patients are often in the terminal stages of their disease and don’t have months to wait. Therefore, Lee and his associates have developed a method that harvests and expands the cells in 11 days. This time differential turns out to be critical and life-saving.
The NCI Pediatric Oncology Branch’s outstanding advances in immunotherapy and other fields received special recognition at the 2013 AACR annual meeting via their selection to co-Lead a Stand Up 2 Cancer Pediatric Dream Team directed at “Immunogenomics to Create New Therapies for High-Risk Childhood Cancers.” Their participation in this highly competitive arena illustrates the high esteem the pediatric oncology community has for NCI research in this challenging area, per a statement from AACR: “The pediatric oncology research field will continue to benefit from the dedication of expert researchers such as you and your colleagues.”
Whatever the next step in immunotherapies for children may be, either in NCI’s Pediatric Oncology Branch or by other researchers across the country, it’s clear that recent clinical advances have real promise and will be integrated into many treatment modalities in the years to come. Significantly, they also have the potential to inform clinicians of how to better treat adult cancers.