Cancer is one of the untreatable diseases with no exact treatment found till now. recently a doctor has been declared cancer-free after he took India’s cancer treatment which is known as CAR-T cell therapy.
He became the first cancer free patient in India after using the Indian therapy. We have got you covered everything from treatment to recovery of the patient.
India’s First Cancer Free Patient:
A cancer patient named Dr. VK GUPTA was a gastroenterologist in Delhi. He has been declared Cancer free after using India’s own CAR-T therapy that was developed by an Indian company. Gupta underwent a failed bone marrow transplant in 2022 that caused leukaemia in him due to which he looked for treatment.
He then came across the commercial approval of CAR-T therapy through which he underwent this process. This treatment cost him only 42 lakhs which would have cost him around 4 crores in foreign countries.
His blood was collected in mid-November with the therapy took place on 30th November. The cancer cells started to reduce in the body within 2 weeks of treatment and hemoglobin levels started rising from then. The total operation cost of 42 lakhs was covered under the Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme as he has served as a doctor in the Indian Army for 28 years.
What Is CAR-T And How It Works:
This therapy will change the patient’s immune system totally to fight against the cancer cells in the body. This CAR-T therapy involves genetic engineering to reprogram the immune system to fight against cancer cells.
In this therapy procedure, the T cells are taken from the patient and then inject Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) is in the T cells at a laboratory. These are again infused into the patient’s body to improve the immune system to fight against the cancer cells.
The “CAR” is a type of protein that supports the immune system to fight against the cancer cells effectively when compared with the normal immune system. The ‘T’ cells are a type of white blood cell that are taken from the patient and modified in the laboratory to be injected again into the patient’s body.
Is CAR-T Available For Public?:
This therapy was approved by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) in October 2023, which is a drug regulatory authority in India. This organization has approved the commercial use of NEXCAR19 which is India’s own CAR-T cell therapy.
This was developed by ImmunoACT and Tata Memorial Hospital. However, this is approved only to treat B-cell cancer types like leukaemia and Lymphoma. This treatment is done only for individuals above 15 years of age.
Conclusion:
Gupta’s therapy was completed at Tata Memorial Hospital and was declared the first cancer free patient. However, the doctors stated he was cancer free for only now with no confirmation of cancer free status for his lifetime.
This therapy has huge side effects if not done correctly and by experts. This is also expensive and still not available at affordable prices for all. Reports stated around 1.6 million people were affected with cancer in 2023. As of now, this therapy is available only in 30 hospitals in 10 cities across India which can be accessed more easily in coming years.
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