Transforming Cancer Care Using CAR-T Therapy

Each year, blood cancers such as leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma account for nearly 10% of all new cancer diagnoses and nearly 10% of all cancer deaths. Fortunately, there is a major advancement developing in personalized treatments for these deadly cancers: chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy.

This leading-edge treatment involves separating T cells from a patient’s blood, manipulating the T cells to bind with a specific protein on their cancer cells and then growing large quantities of the modified T cells. When given back to the patient by infusion, the modified T cells kill the cancer cells.

Thanks to the generosity in our community, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center is the first community hospital in Northern California to offer this innovative therapy.

Alta Bates’s Comprehensive Cancer Center is an ideal location for CAR-T therapy, owing in large part to the clinical expertise of Sutter East Bay Medical Group hematology oncologists Rajesh Behl, M.D., and Oleg Krijanovski, M.D. The two specialists have partnered with philanthropy to bring this state-of-the-art treatment to East Bay residents. 

At least 30-40% of the patients I see have a kind of malignancy that can benefit from CAR-T therapy, and the list of treatable cancers is growing rapidly,” Dr. Behl says. “My hope is that our cancer center can be at the forefront of using these innovative therapies much earlier in the course of disease, rather than as a last treatment option.