A Possible Cure for Lupus
In September, researchers in Germany published tantalizing if still early research that could herald a new era for the treatment of lupus. In a small trial, they found that lupus patients given an existing cancer treatment experienced a sustained remission of their illness for up to 17 months.
The treatment is called CAR T cell therapy, and it works by modifying a patient’s T cells in the lab to better target certain cancers and then infusing them back into the body. The researchers theorized that these modified T cells could also target the misguided immune cells that produce the autoantibodies responsible for lupus. And so far, they appear to be right. All five of the patients in the study experienced an improvement in symptoms following CAR T cell therapy, along with a complete loss of lupus-related autoantibodies.
Time will have to tell whether the remission seen in these patients is truly permanent and if the team’s success can be replicated with more patients. But this therapy could represent a major breakthrough in treating the chronic condition.
