NPR

Therapy Made From Patient's Immune System Shows Promise For Advanced Breast Cancer

An experimental therapy seems to have eradicated cancer in a patient with metastatic breast cancer who had failed every other treatment. The goal is to reliably repeat that success in more people.
"I'm one of the lucky ones," says Judy Perkins, of the immunotherapy treatment she got. The experimental approach seems to have eradicated her metastatic breast cancer."

Doctors at the National Institutes of Health say they've apparently completely eradicated cancer from a patient who had untreatable, advanced breast cancer.

The case is raising hopes about a new way to harness the immune system to fight some of the most common cancers. The methods and the patient's experience are described Monday in a paper published in the journal Nature Medicine.

"We're looking for a treatment — an immunotherapy — that can be broadly used in patients with common, an oncologist and immunologist at the National Cancer Institute, who has been developing the approach.

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