The accreditation of the two hospitals will prevent hematological cancer patients from having to travel to other communities
Arrixaca and Morales Meseguer already have the long-awaited accreditation as reference centers in advanced CAR-T therapies against cancer. The Ministry of Health announced yesterday the incorporation of 14 new hospitals throughout Spain, including the two from Murcia, to the network of centers that offer these treatments.
In La Arrixaca, CAR-T therapies have already been supplied to some patients since 2020 within the framework of clinical trials, but this accreditation represents the definitive step: from now on, all patients likely to benefit from marketed CAR-T treatments will be able to receive them in the Region, without having to be referred to other communities.
CAR-T are based on the ‘reprogramming’, through genetic engineering, of the patient’s own T lymphocytes, so that they are capable of recognizing and destroying malignant cells. CAR-T is currently available for several hematologic cancers: large B-cell lymphoma, mantle cell lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and acute lymphoblastic leukemia, both in adults and children.
Six patients treated
Until now, in La Arrixaca six patients with multiple myeloma had been treated with CAR-T cells in a clinical trial in collaboration with the Barcelona Clinic. Two other trials have also recently been opened: one directed, again, at the treatment of multiple myeloma, and another to study the efficacy of CAR-T against acute lymphoblastic leukemia in adults. However, until now these treatments could not be provided in the Region of Murcia apart from clinical trials. That is, there was no access to CAR-T therapies already marketed. This made it necessary to refer patients with large B-cell lymphoma and childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia to Madrid, Barcelona or Valencia.
But the accreditation of La Arrixaca and Morales Meseguer means much more, because the potential of the CAR-T has only just begun to be studied. The results of these advanced therapies are “very promising”, with a very high efficiency in remission of very advanced cancers, José María Moraleda, head of the Arrixaca Hematology service, stressed a few weeks ago.
Moraleda, with a long history in cell therapy research, hopes that the Region of Murcia can become a benchmark in the field of CAR-T.
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