This Treatment Can Cure Cancer. Can It Mend the Heart?

Abstract

This paper reviews how the treatment of CAR-T cell therapy can be used to cure patients with blood cancers by using T cells to search and dismantle fatal body cells. Cardiac fibrosis is a leading factor in the formation of scars around the heart due to abnormal thickening. Destroying the scar tissue around the heart was the leading objective yet T cells are not frequently aware of the cancer cells in our bodies. Dr. Haig Aghajamian had thought the idea of “CAR-T therapy killing scar tissue in the heart” (Kolata, 2019, p. 1). There were modifications done to T cells so that they could be able to identity and latch onto cancer cells and eliminate them. Researchers desired to mend scar tissue surrounding the heart and reduced cardiac fibrosis in the heart without damaging other tissues.

This Treatment Can Cure Cancer. Can It Mend the Heart?

Situations that deal with the heart have the most life threatening consequences and require more caution than anything else. In the article “This Treatment Can Cure Cancer. Can It Mend the Heart?” by Gina Kolata discusses that CAR-T treatment has a “proof of principle”, said Dr. Richard Lee, but the future outcome of this treatment has been called to question. Scientists have then been doing more experiments with mice to find a permanent solution that is beneficial for all heart patients. The goal is targeting unhealthy cancerous cells and annihilating them. This treatment of course has been a benefit to patients with cancer and now the next step is to aid heart cancer patients.

Immunotherapy treatment, also known as CAR-T has been proven to cure heart failures in mice. The study was designed so that white blood cells, T cells, are engineered so CAR-T would be able to find and get rid of the harmful cells. A new technological advancement was designed in targeting fibrosis. Cardiac fibrosis refers to the thickening of heart muscles because of scarring. “There are six million people in this country with heart failure” (Kolata, 2019, p. 1). Undergoing the therapeutic process is at a cost of $450,00 to one million dollars, which leads to an astonishing amount for the treatment in which some cases is highly unaffordable. People undergoing the CAR-T treatment have not had successful experiences and have been seen to have side effects of low blood pressure, intensive fevers and even brain side effects like seizures. As of now it is not in the best of interest to have CAR-T as a solution to heart failures.

More or less CAR-T immunotherapy heals scar tissue around the heart due to fibrosis. Expressed in the article is that fibrosis does play a beneficial role within other cells of the body. The CAR-T treatment, instead of having their main objective be to annihilate fibrosis all over, the T cells would only attack the scars that slows down on basic normal functions. Dr. Aghajanian and Dr. Epstein configured a test using mice with heart failure and inserting a docking site onto the hearts scar tissue. After two weeks of treating the mice, the doctors compared slides of mice without the treatment and those with and discovered that the scars surrounding the mice with the treatment were cleared compared to the mice without. A groundbreaking moment. However having mice tell the difference with the benefits of CAR-T therapy does need more research dealing with long term effects.

Further steps were then taken to find a protein in the human fibrosis cells but nowhere in other ones. Only one stood out: fibroblast activation protein, other known as FAB. Mice and other animals proved to have the FAB cell, so scientists manufactured the CAR-T cells to delve into the cells with this protein. As the treatment begun again it proved yet effective with the mouse hearts and had not done damage elsewhere. Insight on work being done in Geremy to “scan the hearts of heart attack patients and detect FAP” (Kolata, 2019, p. 2), had peaked interest in human trials for Dr. Epstein. However there are not many details on the possibility of there being an effective human trial just yet.

The article does lack details about other significant factors that contribute to this treatment. There should have been other cases where the scientists offered the individuals something more tempting in undergoing treatment. Jeffery D. Molkentin spoken of a “transformative” (Kolata, 2019, p. 2) discovery. In the article, dates on discoveries or experiments are not expressed and leaves confusion on how effective the treatment is since we do not know how long it has been in the making. Surely this has been happening for quite some time, however there should be more experimentation done to expand on reasonings as to why this treatment will be more effective in the upcoming future with less detrimental effects and an affordable finance more individuals can afford.

Reference

Kolata, G. (2019, September 11). This Treatment Can Cure Cancer. Can It Mend the Heart? . https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/11/health/immunotherapy-heart-failure.html

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