News
NEWS
2022-03-13
The immune cell therapy that Lee Ying-Yuan had wanted to try offered a chance of surviving the terminal cancer.
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Lee Ying-Yuan, the former representative to Thailand, died of ampullary cancer on November 11th at the age of 68.
According to informed sources, after Lee was diagnosed with ampullary cancer, he had approached the biotech company and tried immune cell therapy.
The therapy was to extract healthy immune cells from the human body and culture them in vitro in large quantities before infusing them back. It aimed to have immune cells attack cancer cells but regrettably failed in the end.
The key factor was his poor health condition, which made it impossible to extract any healthy immune cells, as the activity of T cells affects the therapeutic effect.
CAR-T (chimeric antigen receptor-T cell) cell therapy is one kind of immune cell therapy. The principle is to isolate the T cells from the immune cells. By modifying or regulating genes, T cells can target specific cancer antigen receptors and antigenic sites to eliminate them. These modified T cells are then infused into the body to stimulate the immune system and defeat cancers.
There is still great potential for CAR-T cell therapy in treating pancreatic cancer and ampullary cancer. Currently, many doctors would recommend this therapy for cases with metastases and without suitable therapies.