Saving pediatric patients lives count every day
On the morning of August 21, baby Tran Bao Chi (4 years old, in Hanoi) was discharged from the hospital after more than 1 month of treatment. treatment cancer acute lymphocytic leukemia with CAR-T cell therapy.
Appearing at the hospital discharge celebration Bao Chi chirps and dances
Ms. Pham Thi Nguyet, Bao Chi’s mother, said that the current little girl is like being born a second time.
Ms. Nguyet shared: “When my child was 2 years old Sometimes my baby complains of a stomachache and the pain only lasts for about 1 minute and then the pain goes away. I took my child to many doctors and doctors said there was nothing wrong with the child, maybe the mother was too worried.
Then the frequency of the child’s complaints of pain increased from stomach pain to leg pain, arm pain, and mild fever. Fever every other day. When he had a blood infection, he was given antibiotics and his fever went back to normal, but his fever quickly returned.
“When he was most seriously ill, chemotherapy didn’t work, and we felt like he was devastated. Gradually leaving me, Mr. Liem brought hope for me to give birth to my child again,” the patient’s father said emotionally.
Dr. Bach Quoc Khanh, former Director of the Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion, Chairman The Vietnam Association of Hematology and Blood Transfusion said that lymphocytic leukemia is one of the most common cancers in children.
Standard treatment methods to date for this disease include includes chemotherapy, radiotherapy, targeted therapy. About 20% of children with drug resistance or relapse often die in a short time because the cells proliferate very quickly, clogging the brain and internal organs.
Response up to 80%
On July 19, the patient received CAR-T cell infusion. Currently, no cancer cells have been found in the peripheral blood, and the bone marrow biopsy results show that the patient is in complete remission.
According to Professor Liem, the first case in Vietnam was successfully treated. with CAR-T cell therapy opens up a chance of life for patients with acute leukemia or lymphoma who no longer respond to conventional treatment regimens.
This therapy has been granted Licensed in some countries around the world to treat acute lymphoblastic leukemia or lymphoma that does not respond to standard treatment regimens, achieving good results of 60-80%.
Dr. Khanh further informed that unlike adults, the treatment success rate for acute lymphoblastic leukemia is low, recurrence is almost 100%, in children the success rate is higher.
However, the treatment of this disease in children goes through many complicated and difficult stages lasting 2-3 years.
“I think that mental factors account for 50% of treatment This disease is common in children. Like Bao Chi, most pediatric patients undergo chemotherapy and only lie still when they have a high fever and are tired. The children are still basically unaware of the disease, so they talk happily. A patient in good spirits will have a higher treatment effectiveness,” Dr. Khanh said.
For acute lymphoblastic leukemia in children, allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation can be treated, but it is only supports high-dose chemotherapy, not replacing the patient’s diseased marrow with a completely new marrow. After transplantation, the drug-resistant relapse rate is high.
CAR – T therapy nom “We take the patient’s own immune cells and equip them with additional weapons in the body to identify and destroy those cancer cells,” Dr. Khanh said.
The cost of treatment for The first case of leukemia with cell therapy is about 25-3 billion VND completely free. This cost is only 1/10 compared to the US but it is still a huge amount of money. However, it also opens up new treatment opportunities for patients with 16 patients in the project receiving free treatment,” Professor Liem said.
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