Beating Cancer with UH Seidman – The Strength Within With a disease where time to treatment is critical, patients have an added advantage seeking care at UH Seidman Cancer Center. Only a limited number of centers in the country can manufacture their own cells and turn them around as quickly as UH Seidman, where patients are receiving their own genetically re-engineered cells in a mere eight days – compared to more than a month at most cancer centers across the country. “There are a limited number of centers, probably 10, that are capable of doing this,” said Paolo Caimi, MD, Medical Director of the Clinical Trials Unit at UH Seidman.
“While other centers are doing research with commercial products, we’re the only ones who are doing the patients' own cells in our cellular therapy lab, modifying them to get back into patients.” The benefit to the patient can be enormous. In cases like CAR-T, where cells are delivered to patients who have exhausted all other methods of treatment, every day is a critical chapter in their story. Originally just for the treatment of lymphoma patients, these immunotherapy advancements have now extended to patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, multiple myeloma and solid tumors. Another first-of-its-kind clinical trial is validating the groundbreaking
effects of the polio virus on recurrent glioblastoma, a life-threatening cancer of the brain. UH is the only midwest site, and one of only four in the nation, participating in this clinical trial under the direction of UH neurosurgeon Andrew Sloan, MD, Director, UH Brain Tumor & Neuro-Oncology Center and Peter D. Cristal Chair in Neurosurgery. Modified polio virus targets and kills cancer cells, and then creates an anti-tumor immune response for additional tumors. Behind all of these treatments are a broad team of experts in specific disease types – from oncologists and pathologists to molecular biologists, geneticists and radiologists – thoroughly examining the best ways to attack and defeat cancer.
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