A Cure for Autoimmune diseases?!

Researchers in Germany recently cured 6 patients of Lupus erythematosus, a life-long autoimmune disease. They did this with one dose of a cancer treatment called CAR T-cell Immunotherapy. It is looking very promising for many related diseases such as multiple sclerosis.

What is CAR T-Cell Therapy?

CAR T-cell therapies are used to treat some leukemias, lymphomas and multiple myeloma. They were approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the US in 2017. 

Unfortunately, some of them cost almost $450,000 per patient to treat their cancer. They only increase long-term survival in less than 50% of patients, though there is a newer CAR T-cell therapy that has a greater than 60% survival in children at 5 years post Acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL).

The therapy is considered a “living drug” and tailored to each patient. The patient’s own T-cells are removed and used for the therapy.  They are then changed in a laboratory to have new proteins, or antigens, called chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) on their surface. Millions of the cells will be created and re-injected back into the patient. The new protein on the cell, CAR, now goes through the patient’s body finding the cancer cells and killing them, all while continuing to multiply inside the patient’s body. It has been a game changer in helping to decrease the need for chemotherapy and radiation, especially in children.

What are Lupus erythematosus (Lupus) and autoimmune disorders?

Lupus is one of many chronic autoimmune disorders. It can cause body aches, rashes, fatigue, and kidney disease among many other issues.

Scleroderma, Multiple sclerosis, Rheumatoid arthritis, Sjogren’s disease, Psoriatic arthritis and Polymyositis are just a few of the many different autoimmune disorders. These diseases are basically where your immune system attacks you instead of what it should be attacking to protect you. Each disease tends to have a hallmark of what part of the body it attacks but their symptoms have a lot of overlap.

They create inflammation throughout the body that can destroy organ tissues. Some of the organs they attack include the liver, lungs, eyes, brain and kidneys.

Often patients will develop rashes and other skin symptoms. Some patients will suffer severe disease in their joints.

While autoimmune diseases are most common in middle age women, they can happen in men and at different ages.

Currently, these disorders can significantly decrease a patient’s quality of life and are sometimes fatal. Patients are often in a lot of pain and very fatigued. The medications they take can decrease their immune system leaving them susceptible to multiple infections that ordinarily wouldn’t be a problem. Patients can go through “flares”, where the disease comes and goes. There is no cure for autoimmune diseases—until now!

A cure for Lupus?

Researchers used the CAR T-cell therapy in 6 patients with Lupus and all appear free of the disease. The longest survivor is 18 months out now post-treatment with no lupus symptoms. In addition, the patients had no symptoms from the therapy that cancer patients usually suffered from.

This sounds very promising. Especially for lifelong, debilitating diseases that decrease the quality of life and can be financially devastating. I will be keeping my eye on this one!