Medical University of Vienna: New therapy option doubles the life span of B-cell lymphoma patients

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The so-called CAR-T cell therapy is a promising option for treating around one fifth of patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

That is the main finding of the multi-center JULIET study, in which researchers from the Comprehensive Cancer Centre (CCC) of the Medical University of Vienna and Vienna General Hospital participated. In CAR-T cell therapy, previously modified T-cells recognize a specific protein on the surface of the tumor. This in turn triggers destruction of the tumor cells. This introduces a new option for treating such patients. This is because the two-year survival rate following standard treatment is only 20 percent, whereas, with CAR-T cell therapy, overall survival has doubled to 40%. The results of this study were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.