Still more from the article ...
... When the boy was first diagnosed, he had a mass in the left lobe of his liver that measured 11.2 cm by 9.6 cm by 7.1 cm (4.4 3.8 2.8 inches).
The cancer had metastasized to his lungs, with indications that it had also spread to his bones.
The boy received three bouts of chemotherapy and had his primary liver tumor surgically removed, along with two operations to remove the cancer that had spread to his lungs.
Despite the interventions, the cancer rapidly returned, with a new tumor appearing in his lungs.
After the rapid recurrence, the boy was enrolled in the CARE study, the first human trial of an experimental form of CAR T cell therapy.
The boy received two doses of the experimental GPC3-CAR treatment, made from his own T cells, but engineered to recognize glypican-3 (GPC3), a protein that is highly expressed in liver cancers.
The researchers also engineered the therapy to include genes that would express the immune proteins interleukin"15 and interleukin"21, to boost the CAR T cells' longevity and tumor-killing ability, based on previous evidence from preclinical models.
The boy received two infusions of the GPC3-CAR treatment. After the first infusion, the patient showed a partial response, indicated by CT scans and falling levels of a protein called alpha-fetoprotein in his blood, which is indicative of tumor activity.
Eight weeks later he received a second dose of the therapy, and follow-up scans showed no remaining signs of the disease, apart from some residual scarring.
After 12 months, the boy was still disease-free -- an incredible result and turnaround for the patient and his family, given the severity of his illness before his participation in the trial. ...
[emphasis mine]
