A new experimental treatment that uses nanotechnology has saved the life of a woman living with terminal breast cancer.
Judy Perkins, a Florida resident, had advanced breast cancer that could not be treated with conventional therapy.
Two years ago, Perkins was told she had three months to live but due to the experimental drug made from her own cells, she is cancer free.
“About a week after [the therapy] I started to feel something, I had a tumour in my chest that I could feel shrinking,” Perkins told BBC.
“It took another week or two for it to completely go away.”
The tennis ball-sized tumours in her liver and secondary cancers throughout her body were wiped out by pumping 90 billion cancer-killing immune cells into her body.
The mind-blowing technology is described as a “living drug”.
“We’re talking about the most highly personalised treatment imaginable,” said Steven Rosenberg, chief of surgery at the National Cancer Institute.
“The very mutations that cause cancer turn out to be its Achilles heel.”
The study’s findings were published in Nature Medicine.
The successful results are only from one patient and the researchers note that more clinical trials must be done to confirm the findings.
“This is highly experimental and we’re just learning how to do this, but potentially it is applicable to any cancer,” Rosenberg added.
“A lot of works needs to be done, but the potential exists for a paradigm shift in cancer therapy – a unique drug for every cancer patient – it is very different to any other kind of treatment.”
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