Cell therapy from Japan: hope for Vietnam

University
Vice President Professor Ta Thanh Van said that this advanced treatment has
been used in a number of medical centres in Japan for several years now and has
proved its worth.

Three
years ago, the Japanese government officially recognised cell therapy as a
cancer treatment by enacting regenerative medicine legislation.

Cell
therapy, also known as cytotherapy, introduces beneficial cellular materials
into a patient.

The
immune system, which acts like body’s home security system, classifies its
targets into two types of alien substances that need to be fought off. The
first group comprises of antigens like molecules, viruses, and foreign cells.
The second group comprises virus-infected or tumours.

For
each group, the immune system adopts different measures to neutralise the
‘threats.’

With
the first group, a humoral response, or antibody-mediated response, is
deployed. This involves mostly B cells being delivered to the targets.

In
the case of cancer, the cell-mediated response – involving mostly T cells – is
deployed to neutralise threats by the invasion of tumour cells.

However,
when the immune system is compromised, the tumour cells multiply unfettered.

Cell
therapy is hence used as a measure to restore the balance in the patient’s
immunity, strengthen and provide facilitative conditions for the proliferation
of -fighting cells.

Cultivating
immune cells

Prof.
Van said that in cell therapy, 10-30ml of peripheral blood – a mixture of red
blood cells, white blood cells and platelets – is drawn from the patients.

Immune
cells are then isolated and cultivated in a special environment with the goal
of activating its specialised function.

After
a sufficient number of cells with the desired traits of detecting and attacking
cancerous cells have been grown, they will be injected into the patient’s body,
creating an immune barrier that is strong enough to keep the cancerous cells at
bay, or attack them.

Currently,
the therapy is considered as an effective, safer treatment without harmful
side-effects since the patients get injected with primed immune cells taken
from their own bodies.

Doctors
at the Hanoi Medical University have, with the assistance from Japanese
experts, extracted, cultivated and activated immune cells with a high rate of
success, 93-99 percent.

This
is considered a positive first step towards full deployment of cell therapy
treatment in cancer patients.

Dr.
Tran Huy Thinh of the Faculty of Biochemistry at the Hanoi Medical University
said Japanese partners have committed to transferring 100 percent of this technique
to the university.

Cell
therapy is currently used in treating solid organ cancers – malignant tumours
in the stomach, breast, lung, liver, kidney, colon, among others. Blood cancer
cannot be treated with cell therapy.

In
Japan, more than 80 percent of people receiving immune y last year
were late-stage cancer (stage IIIB and IV) patients.

Using
this therapy in combination with other measures like surgery, chemotherapy, and
radiation will considerably increase the effectiveness of cancer treatment, the
doctors believe.

Observed
advantages include prolonged disease-free survival (inhibited tumour growth),
largely improved quality of life since the patient will not suffer a lot of
pain, and thus, will be free from the side-effects of painkillers.

For
patients undergoing chemotherapy, the side-effects of this often-time damaging
process can be partly alleviated by cell therapy.

Another
advantage of cell therapy that many will appreciate is that it has little
impact on their daily activities. Patients can still go to work after a
30-minute session, twice a week, six times in three consecutive months.

Starting
this year

Prof.
Van said doctors at the medical university are exerting their best efforts to
make cell therapy a reality in Vietnam and expect to start treating cancer
patients with cell therapy this year.

Van
said the technology transfer had actually been set in motion two years ago.

The
Hanoi Medical University has sent a delegation of leading experts in molecular
and cellular biomedicine to Japan, in order to receive training in cell
therapy.

The
implementation of cell therapy in Vietnam will happen under periodic monitoring
by Japanese experts who will also make recommendations and consultations.

As
of now, the university has already met with requirements in terms of
infrastructure and specialised equipment and specially qualified human
resources in order to deploy the cell therapy treatment.

 “Cell therapy has been in use by the Grandsoul
Nara corp. since 2006. We have treated thousands of cancer patients in Japan
and other countries in the region,” said Yoshinobu Matsuo, who works for the
Grandsoul Nara Clinic in Japan.

“Statistics
show the success rate of cancer containment at 54.4 percent; however, it is a
very safe treatment. In 10 years of implementation, no significant side effects
or complications have been observed so far.”

He
cited a few examples. After treatment, the tumour showed signs of shrinking in
a 75-year-old patient whose liver cancer had spread to the lungs. The same
thing happened to a 64-year-old male patient whose cancer had metastasized, as
well as a 30-year-old kidney cancer patient.

Van
said a detailed proposal and programme plan is being prepared by the
university’s biomedical ethics council to submit to Ministry of Health so as to
get permission to conduct cell therapy on cancer patients. He is hopeful of
getting the ministry’s approval, he added.

According
to the National Institute for Cancer Control, more than 160,000 new cancer
patients are detected every year. There are 115,000 cancer deaths ever year.

The
most frequently diagnosed cancers in men are lung, stomach, liver, colon, and
rectum cancers – accounting for 42,000 cases per year.

The
most frequently diagnosed cancers in women are breast, lung, colorectal and
cervix cancers – accounting for 30,000 cases per year.-VNA