Car-T cell therapy is an advanced cancer treatment in which a patient's T cells (a type of immune system cell) are changed in the laboratory so they will attack with high specifications malignant cells. T cells are taken from a patient’s blood. Then the gene for a special receptor that binds to a certain protein on the patient’s cancer cells is added to the T cells in Vitro. The special receptor is called a Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR). Recent studies reported promising findings concerning Car-T cells. Clinical trials have shown strong efficacy against leukaemia and lymphoma and other blood malignancies. Car-T cells use provided higher success rate, increasing hence patient's life expectancy and improving quality of life.
As for Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), radical surgery combined with conventional radiotherapy, chemotherapy and immunotherapy was for longtime the basis treatment. However, with these treatment modalities, the recurrence and metastasis of tumors remain at a high level. Very few randomized clinical trials investigated the potency of Car-T cells in head and neck cancers management. Although facing multiple barriers such as limited choices of targeting proteins, the challenges of CAR-T cell infiltration into targeted tumors and short survival time in vivo, conducted studies reported promising results of Car-T cells combination in head and neck solid cancers management.
Therefore, this biomarker-based treatment seems to be an innovative strategy in oral and maxillofacial/ head and neck cancers management limited by the need of finding accurate signals and targets for the T cells. Once a high degree of specificity obtained, Car-T cells could have an impressive role in increasing Head and neck cancers patients survival rate, improving quality of life and opening hope for cancers curing.
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