God Almighty says in the Holy Quran: Corruption has appeared throughout the land and sea by [reason of] what the hands of people have earned so He may let them taste part of (the consequence of) what they have done that perhaps they will return (to righteousness). (Firman Allah Taala: Telah timbul berbagai kerosakan dan bala bencana di darat dan di laut dengan sebab apa yang telah dilakukan oleh tangan manusia; (timbulnya yang demikian) kerana Allah hendak merasakan mereka sebahagian dari balasan perbuatan-perbuatan buruk yang mereka telah lakukan, supaya mereka kembali (insaf dan bertaubat). (Quran 30:41)

CcNEWS Site email: hamdenbolly@yahoo.co.uk

'Kehebatan' terapi Menghapuskan leukemia dlm Kajian

By STEPHANIE NANO - Associated Press | AP – 8 hrs ago

NEW YORK (AP) - Para saintis melaporkan kejayaan per-tama yang jelas dengan pendekatan baru untuk merawat leukemia - mengubah sel darah sendiri pesakit menjadi pembunuh yang memburu dan memusnahkan sel-sel kanser mereka.

Mereka telah hanya dilakukan dalam tiga pesakit setakat ini, tetapi keputusan yang menarik: Dua muncul kanser bebas sehingga tahun selepas rawatan, dan pesakit yang ketiga adalah lebih baik tetapi masih mempunyai beberapa kanser. Ahli-ahli sains telah bersedia untuk mencuba teknik terapi gen yang sama untuk jenis kanser yang lain.

"Ia bekerja besar. Kami terkejut ia bekerja sebagai baik kerana ia telah lakukan," kata Dr Carl Jun, pakar terapi gen di Universiti Pennsylvania. "Kami hanya setahun keluar sekarang. Kita perlu mengetahui berapa lama ini remisi lepas."

Beliau mengetuai kajian itu, yang diterbitkan hari ini oleh dua jurnal, New England Journal Perubatan Perubatan dan Sains translasi.

Ia melibatkan tiga lelaki dengan kes-kes yang sangat maju leukemia kronik Limfosit, atau CLL. Satu-satunya harapan untuk penyembuhan sekarang sum-sum tulang atau pemindahan sel stem, yang tidak sentiasa bekerja dan membawa risiko kematian yang tinggi.

Para saintis telah bekerja selama bertahun-tahun untuk mencari cara-cara untuk me-ningkatkan kemampuan sistem imun untuk melawan kanser. Cuba lebih awal pada askar aliran darah genetik mengubah dipanggil sel T mempunyai kejayaan yang terhad; sel yang diubah tidak membiak dengan baik dan cepat hilang.

Jun dan rakan-rakannya membuat perubahan kepada teknik, menggunakan pembawa novel untuk menyampaikan gen baru ke dalam T-sel dan satu mekanisme isyarat yang memberitahu sel untuk membunuh dan berganda.

Yang mengakibatkan tentera-tentera "pembunuh bersiri" sel-sel yang sel-sel kanser sasaran, memusnahkan mereka, dan pergi untuk membunuh kanser baru kerana ia muncul. Ia telah diketahui bahawa virus menyerang sel T yang cara, tetapi ini adalah kali pertama ia dilakukan terhadap kanser, June berkata.

Untuk percubaan, darah diambil dari setiap pesakit dan T-sel dikeluarkan.

Selepas mereka telah diubah di dalam makmal, berjuta-juta sel telah dikembalikan kepada pesakit dalam tiga campuran.

Para penyelidik menyifatkan pengalaman salah seorang pesakit yang berusia 64 tahun secara terperinci. Tiada perubahan selama dua minggu, tetapi kemudian dia jatuh sakit dengan seram sejuk, loya dan demam. Dia dan dua orang pesakit yang lain telah dipukul dengan keadaan yang berlaku apabila sejumlah besar sel-sel kanser mati pada masa yang sama - tanda bahawa terapi gen bekerja.

"Ia adalah seperti selesema lebih teruk hidup mereka," kata Jun. "Tetapi selepas itu, ia ke atas. Mereka dengan baik."

Komplikasi utama seolah-olah bahawa teknik ini juga memusnahkan sesetengah sel darah lain jangkitan-pertempuran; setakat ini pesakit telah mendapatkan rawatan bulanan untuk itu.

Penyelidik Penn mahu menguji teknik terapi dalam gen kanser leukemia berkaitan, ser-ta pankreas dan kanser ovari, katanya. Institusi lain melihat prostat dan kanser otak.

Dr. Walter J. Urba Providence Pusat Kanser di Portland, Oregon, yang dipanggil pene-muan "agak luar biasa" tetapi menambah nota berhati-hati kerana saiz kajian.

"Ia masih hanya 3 pesakit. 3 yang lebih baik daripada 1, tetapi ia bukan 100," kata Urba, salah satu pengarang editorial ke atas penyelidikan yang muncul dalam New England Journal.

Apakah yang akan berlaku jangka panjang adalah kunci, beliau berkata: "Apakah seperti tahun dari sekarang, dua tahun dari sekarang, untuk pesakit-pesakit ini"

Tetapi Dr. Kanti Rai, pakar kanser darah di Long Island, New York Medical Center Yahudi, memang tidak dapat mengandungi semangat, berkata dia biasanya lebih terpelihara dalam komen beliau mengenai laporan itu.

"Ia adalah jenis yang luar biasa, dan pencapaian yang menakjubkan," kata Rai, yang tidak mempunyai peranan dalam penyelidikan.

Salah satu daripada pesakit yang tidak mahu dikenal pasti, menulis tentang penya-kitnya, dan mengeluarkan satu kenyataan melalui universiti. Manusia, dirinya ahli sains, memanggil dirinya "sangat bernasib baik," walaupun dia menulis bahawa dia tidak me-rasakan bahawa cara apabila dia mula-mula didiagnosis 15 tahun yang lalu pada umur 50 tahun.

Beliau telah berjaya dirawat selama bertahun-tahun dengan kemoterapi sehingga dadah standard tidak lagi berkesan.

Kini, hampir setahun sejak dia masuk ke dalam kajian, "Saya sihat dan masih dalam pengampunan. Saya tahu ini tidak mungkin menjadi satu keadaan yang tetap, tetapi saya mengambil keputusan untuk mengisytiharkan kemenangan dan menganggap bahawa saya telah memenangi."

___

Online:

New England Journal: http://www.nejm.org

Science journal: http://stm.sciencemag.org

CcNEWS Site email: hamdenbolly@yahoo.co.uk

'Amazing' therapy wipes out leukemia in study

By STEPHANIE NANO - Associated Press | AP – 8 hrs ago

NEW YORK (AP) - Scientists are reporting the first clear success with a new approach for treating leukemia - turning the patients' own blood cells into assassins that hunt and destroy their cancer cells.

They've only done it in three patients so far, but the results were striking: Two appear cancer-free up to a year after treatment, and the third patient is improved but still has some cancer. Scientists are already preparing to try the same gene therapy technique for other kinds of cancer.

"It worked great. We were surprised it worked as well as it did," said Dr. Carl June, a gene therapy expert at the University of Pennsylvania. "We're just a year out now. We need to find out how long these remissions last."

He led the study, published Wednesday by two journals, New England Journal of Medicine and Science Translational Medicine.

It involved three men with very advanced cases of chronic lymphocytic leukemia, or CLL. The only hope for a cure now is bone marrow or stem cell transplants, which don't always work and carry a high risk of death.

Scientists have been working for years to find ways to boost the immune system's ability to fight cancer. Earlier attempts at genetically modifying bloodstream soldiers called T-cells have had limited success; the modified cells didn't reproduce well and quickly disappeared.

June and his colleagues made changes to the technique, using a novel carrier to deliver the new genes into the T-cells and a signaling mechanism telling the cells to kill and multiply.

That resulted in armies of "serial killer" cells that targeted cancer cells, destroyed them, and went on to kill new cancer as it emerged. It was known that T-cells attack viruses that way, but this is the first time it's been done against cancer, June said.

For the experiment, blood was taken from each patient and T-cells removed. After they were altered in a lab, millions of the cells were returned to the patient in three infusions.

The researchers described the experience of one 64-year-old patient in detail. There was no change for two weeks, but then he became ill with chills, nausea and fever. He and the other two patients were hit with a condition that occurs when a large number of cancer cells die at the same time - a sign that the gene therapy is working.

"It was like the worse flu of their life," June said. "But after that, it's over. They're well."

The main complication seems to be that this technique also destroys some other infection-fighting blood cells; so far the patients have been getting monthly treatments for that.

Penn researchers want to test the gene therapy technique in leukemia-related cancers, as well as pancreatic and ovarian cancer, he said. Other institutions are looking at prostate and brain cancer.

Dr. Walter J. Urba of the Providence Cancer Center in Portland, Oregon, called the findings "pretty remarkable" but added a note of caution because of the size of the study.

"It's still just three patients. Three's better than one, but it's not 100," said Urba, one of the authors of an editorial on the research that appears in the New England Journal.

What happens long-term is key, he said: "What's it like a year from now, two years from now, for these patients."

But Dr. Kanti Rai, a blood cancer expert at New York's Long Island Jewish Medical Cen-ter, could hardly contain his enthusiasm, saying he usually is more reserved in his comments on such reports.

"It's an amazing, amazing kind of achievement," said Rai, who had no role in the research.

One of the patients, who did not want to be identified, wrote about his illness, and released a statement through the university. The man, himself a scientist, called himself "very lucky," although he wrote that he didn't feel that way when he was first diagnosed 15 years ago at age 50.

He was successfully treated over the years with chemotherapy until standard drugs no longer worked.

Now, almost a year since he entered the study, "I'm healthy and still in remission. I know this may not be a permanent condition, but I decided to declare victory and assume that I had won."

___

Online:

New England Journal: http://www.nejm.org

Science journal: http://stm.sciencemag.org

CcNEWS Site email: hamdenbolly@yahoo.co.uk

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