Two early recipients of CAR T immunotherapy were free of a blood cancer nearly a decade after receiving the therapy.

A colorized scanning electron micrograph of chronic lymphocytic leukemia, a type of leukemia that affects B cells and accounts for a quarter of new leukemia cases each year. Credit…Keith R. Porter/Science Source
Doug Olson was feeling kind of tired in 1996. When a doctor examined him she frowned. “I don’t like the feel of those lymph nodes,” she said, poking his neck. She ordered a biopsy. The result was terrifying. He had chronic lymphocytic leukemia, a blood cancer that mostly strikes older people and accounts for about a quarter of new cases of leukemia.
“Oh Lordy,” Mr. Olson said. “I thought I was done for.” He was only 49 and, he said, had always been healthy. Continue reading