Trial cancer treatment in Wichita – KAKE

WICHITA, Kan. (KAKE) -

There's a major medical break-through in the world of cancer treatment. No more chemotherapy or radiation; doctors in Wichita are using patients' own blood cells to fight off cancer, and it's working.

62-year-old David Butler's appointments at the Cancer Center of Kansas are coming to an end. It's been two long years for him - in 2017, stomach pain led doctors to discover 13 tumors inside his abdomen. Butler went through months of chemotherapy, then stem cell therapy. But the cancer kept coming back.

The news could have been grim. But not for Butler. The Cancer Center of Kansas is one of just nine facilities in the nation chosen to participate in a study using the patient's own cells to fight off the disease.

It's called Car T-cell Therapy. A patient's own immune cells are harvested, then genetically modified and inserted back into the body. Those t-cells then search out and kill the cancer. And the Car T-cell Therapy can be given as outpatient treatment, with no hospital stay required.

David Butler is now cancer-free, and his doctors are hopeful the t-cells will continue to stave off the disease.

The Cancer Center of Kansas has treated two patients, and so far so good. Once the study is finished, doctors and the drug company will go to the FDA for full approval to use the therapy to treat cancer across the country.

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Trial cancer treatment in Wichita - KAKE