Álvaro, a six-year-old boy from Alicante who suffered from acute type B lymphoblastic leukemia and did not respond to conventional treatment, was treated successfully and cured at the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu in Barcelona thanks to a pioneering therapy.
He is the first pediatric patient who has received the innovative CAR-T 19 therapy, a type of immunotherapy that has been funded by the National Health System.
What is CAR-T 19 therapy?
Explained in broad strokes, treatment with CAR-T 19 consists in obtaining the patient's T cells or lymphocytes, treating them in the laboratory and making them, through genetic manipulation, have a receptor that recognizes leukemia cells.
In short, the patient's own cells (modified) are redirected against the tumor. The infusion of immunotherapy is to put the modified lymphocytes to the patient to then observe the child's reaction and respond to the possible side effects of the therapy.
"The drug Kymriah de Novartis is the first CAR-T 19 therapy funded by the Ministry of Health, Consumption and Social Welfare. It is an example of the new medicines that allow the personalization of cancer treatments and, in this case, the treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most frequent type of cancer in pediatrics that affects three or four out of every 100,000 children, "they explain from Sant Joan de Déu.
In Babies and more An 11-year-old boy has been treated for his leukemia with his own immune cellsThe Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, of Esplugues de Llobregat (Barcelona) is one of the only three accredited pediatric centers in Spain to offer the CAR-T treatment, together with the Vall d'Hebron Hospital, also in Barcelona, and the Child Jesus Hospital, Madrid.
The boy is recovered
The disease was diagnosed to Álvaro when he was 23 months old. After having suffered two relapses and undergoing a bone marrow transplant without success he was referred to the Oncology Area of Sant Joan de Déu. In December he received this therapy and is already recovered. According to doctors, there is no evidence of the disease in the patient, which has been able to resume his life normally.
After five years of illness, little Álvaro has already been able to return home and this Thursday the doctors of Sant Joan de Déu have given him permission to make “a full normal life and enjoy life”, he explained today with a lot emotion his mother, Marina.
In Babies and more, he overcame a leukemia thanks to an experimental treatment and his case opens the way to cure cancer with immunotherapy
