Visakhapatnam, Nov 4 (Reporter) Apollo Cancer Centers, Visakhapatnam on Tuesday said it has introduced CAR-T cell therapy for the first time in the state of Andhra Pradesh. CAR-T cell therapy is a revolutionary treatment approach for difficult to treat blood cancers where conventionally available treatments have failed, the hospital said in a release here. CAR-T cell therapies are biological drugs and it involve extracting immune cells called T-lymphocytes, from patient’s body then re-programming these T-cells to engage specific targets on the surfaces of certain cancer cells. The re-programming is performed with the help of a safe vehicle called a viral vector, which are genetically modified to confer certain fixed properties to the cells. Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CARs) are then expressed on the surfaces of T-cells. These cells are grown in a laboratory setting to a desirable dose, and are then injected back to the patient, so that they identify the target Cancer cells and eventually destroy them. Globally approved CAR-T cell therapies target either the CD19 antigen, present in certain B-cell Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphomas (B-NHLs) and B-cell Lymphoblastic Leukaemias or BCMA present in Multiple Myeloma. Six such CD19-directed or BCMA-targeting CAR-T cell therapies are approved in several Western Countries. Some are approved regionally in countries such as China and Israel. Beyond these blood cancers, several CAR-Ts and other genetically modified cell therapies are being developed to treat solid and connective tissue cancers. In India, the first commercially approved CAR-T cell therapy is NexCAR19™. It targets CD19 and is approved for treatment of patients aged 15 years and above with B-cell Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphomas & B-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (B-ALL). It was developed by IIT-Bombay and its spin-off company ImmunoACT and was clinically steered by Tata Memorial Centre. Another CAR-T cell therapy developed by IDIBAPS in Barcelona in partnership with Immuneel Therapeutics in Bengaluru has also been recently approved for B-NHLs. Overall, results vary with every CAR-T cell therapy but the chances of survival without progression of the disease are generally higher than 40 percent over 3 years based on available data from globally approved CAR-T cell therapies. With Indian CAR-T cell therapies, the data is still young and will mature in time...////...