Going home

Last week Dea was reflecting on the intensity of her clinical trial experience, her two months away from home, and her anticipation of unpredictable treatment results. She commented that the road felt long and, whatever the results of the immunotherapy, she won’t be the same person when she boards that ferry to sail home. Well, that time has come. Yesterday Dea got her first assessment of the treatment, and tomorrow she sails home. She wanted to share an update with friends.

From the beginning, the research team had planned to check her response to their experimental treatment at ~30, 60, and 90 days post infusion. Because this therapy is completely new, of course, they didn’t know what to expect. However, they had reason to believe that if the treatment helped at all, it would probably take time. Here’s what they saw in her day-30 assessment:

1) Dea’s CAR T-cells seem to have taken the ‘molecular surgery’ beautifully. They accepted the genomic adjustments, they looked strong at reinfusion, and they have persisted nicely through the first month. There is a possibility that those hounds are hard at work. 2) The rapid growth and proliferation of tumors that we saw between December and March (just before the treatment) seem to have stopped. This is very encouraging. 3) While they can see that her old tumors did not grow or multiply, they can also see that some flurry of biological activity is going on at those tumor sites. The scans they’ve done so far don’t allow them to discern whether all that activity is her immune system doing the hard work of cleaning out tumors, or some kind of general tumor activity (but, did I mention that the tumors don’t seem to be growing or multiplying?).

Since we expected that any good outcome would take time, and since her current path shows signs of possibly heading in the right direction, Dea has decided to take in these preliminary results with cautious optimism. She has agreed to continue going forward with the clinical trial, and there are more blessings to count on this path. This week’s results invite the team to give her bionic T-cells some more time to work — and work without chemotherapy. More reprieve from chemotherapy is a really nice thing. This means that she can focus on managing the injuries/complications of her spinal tumors with less distraction from the extra hassles that come with chemo. God willing and the creek don’t rise, this may mean that she can continue to eat more comfortably as part of a broader healing regime (I’ve reopened a meal sign-up sheet for spring, here).

Dea P, I suspect that I speak for a small crowd when I say we’re really proud of you. Inspired. If the order of the day is healing, then here’s wishing you big scoops of that. May the lessons from this experiment portend great things for you, and great things for science. May your arrival back at home come with a deep breath and a deep smile.

Love.

I’m appending a copy of the now-familiar group photo montage, just because it continues to grow, and it may be good medicine for all of us.

Click on any photo, below, to enter slideshow mode. Click “load more” at the bottom to see the next page (and the next page) of photos.

Photos moved here.

We’ve also reopened the meal volunteer sign up sheet for spring, here.