A Florida woman with advanced pancreatic cancer who convinced scientists to treat her with experimental therapy to boost immunity has seen her tumors shrink drastically. Kathy Wilkes received pioneering therapy with the T-cell receptor, or TCR, last June and appears to have overcome the often incurable disease. According to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the therapy is designed to harness the immune system to create “living drugs” that can target and destroy tumors. “It’s really exciting. It’s the first time this kind of treatment has worked on a very difficult type of cancer to treat,” Josh Veatch of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, who did not participate in the study, told the Associated Press. experiment. Wilkes, of Ormond Beach, located researchers in Oregon to volunteer for treatment. “I knew regular chemotherapy wouldn’t save my life and I was going to save it,” he said.
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