Blood cancer: News in the treatment of the disease from the series Sense of Tumor

Patients are given new hope for survival by the immunotherapy method, which uses the patient’s own immunity to fight tumor cells. Even thanks to modern drugs, more and more patients survive, the death rate from blood tumors stagnates, and in some diagnoses even decreases!

Treatment with own immunity

Effective chemotherapy is still used in children and young people, but it is being abandoned in adults and the “hit” of recent years is treatment using so-called CAR-T lymphocytes. “It is a type of immunotherapy in which doctors ‘train’ the patient’s own cells to attack and destroy the tumor. This treatment achieves truly remarkable results.” describes prof. MD Marek Trněny, head of the 1st internal clinic – hematology clinic of the 1st Faculty of Medicine of the Charles University and the General Faculty Hospital in Prague.

prof. MD Marek Trnény

Author: Dan Chernovský

Monoclonal antibodies are, for example, an increasingly frequently used drug. “These drugs mark the tumor cell and the immune system then kills it on its own. Drugs can also bind to other substances that kill tumor cells. The advantage of the treatment is thus higher efficiency and at the same time a significant reduction in side effects,” describes prof. MD Petr Cetkovský, director of the Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion.

Tumor diseases of the blood

Leukemia is a malignant tumor of white blood cells. Tumor cells in the bone marrow “suppress” the blood-forming cells, making it difficult for the regeneration of white and red blood cells and platelets.

Multiple myeloma is a disease originating from cells called plasma cells, which most often affect the bone marrow and dissolve the bones. This is often accompanied by pain and fragility.

Lymphomas affect the lymph nodes and bone marrow. It belongs to tumors that are easily treatable and often curable.

There are two basic types: ✔ Hodgkin’s lymphoma ✔ Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma

Who succumbed to hematological cancers:

✔ Jiří Grossmann (†30) ✔ Miloslav Šimek (†63) ✔ Josef Lux (†43) ✔ Daughter of Michal David Míš (†9) ✔ Klárka, daughter of Vendula and Karel Svobodová (†5) ✔ Karel Gott (†80)