A new strategy to attack aggressive brain cancer shrank tumors in two early tests

By LAURAN NEERGAARD
AP Medical Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Researchers revved up immune cells that shrank an extremely aggressive type of brain tumor when tested in a handful of patients. The experiments are just first steps but they signal a new strategy to fight hard-to-treat glioblastoma. It’s a twist on the CAR-T therapy already used to treat leukemia, by modifying patients’ own disease-fighting T cells to be better cancer hunters. Now Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Pennsylvania are trying next-generation versions strengthened to try to overcome glioblastoma’s stronger defenses. Early findings were published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine and Nature Medicine.