HoodaThunk?

This, ladies and gentlemen, is huge. The National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that they have successfully treated melanoma with a gene therapy.

Researchers at the National Cancer Institute have performed the first successful use of gene therapy as a cancer treatment, in a study of 17 patients with advanced melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer that kills almost 8,000 Americans annually.

The scientists genetically altered the white blood cells of the patients, converting their normal immune cells into cancer-fighters. Two patients have remained disease-free for at least 18 months, the federal investigators reported yesterday in a study in the online version of the journal Science.

“These results represent the first time gene therapy has been used successfully to treat cancer. Moreover, we hope it will be applicable not only to melanoma, but also for a broad range of common cancers, such as breast and lung cancer,” said Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health, of which NCI is a part.

The 2 patients they refer to in the opening paragraphs both had their cancers spread into their lungs and livers – usually a death-knell – and the therapy has removed all signs of the disease from their systems. What’s more, they’ve shown no sign of the disease for 18 months, so this isn’t some flash-in-the-pan observation. The researchers are working to make more powerful versions of the white cells they modified so they’ll stay in the body longer and in greater numbers. They also say they’ve already developed receptors that will bond to other cancers such as lung and breast cancer.

This is tremendously good news. What I wouldn’t have paid over 3 years ago for this treatment to be available to my father, now passed… This is progress, however, and we are 1 step closer to seeing that some other child won’t have to watch their father fight this battle and lose. That’s a future worth hoping for.