A game-changing blood cancer treatment that involves transforming cells in the immune system so they can attack and destroy cancer cells will be available in Cheshire and Merseyside for the first time with the launch of a new NHS service.
The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust in Liverpool, which provides specialist cancer care for a population of 2.4m people, has become the first NHS centre in Cheshire and Merseyside to offer CAR-T.
Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy – or CAR-T therapy for short – is a highly innovative form of immunotherapy.
It involves removing T immune cells from a patient’s blood and modifying them to become CAR-T cells that are then transplanted back into the patient. The CAR-T cells can recognise a specific protein on cancer cells and attach to it, allowing them to attack the cancer.
The treatment is very specialist and is only available in a few centres nationally for patients with specific cancers – including B cell lymphomas and acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) – that have not responded to other treatments or have returned after them.
Until now patients from Cheshire and Merseyside have had to travel to other parts of the UK to receive it.
Each treatment is manufactured individually using a patient’s own T cells in a process that takes around four to six weeks.
Patients referred to The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre in Liverpool for CAR-T therapy will first have their T cells collected via a daycase procedure carried out in the hospital’s therapeutic apheresis suite by a team from NHS Blood and Transplant.
Their T cells will then be transported to a specialist pharmaceutical company to develop their own personalised CAR-T treatment in a process that takes around four to six weeks.
While the patient’s CAR-T cells are being produced for them, patients will often be given chemotherapy or radiotherapy to prepare their body for treatment.
Then, when their CAR-T cells are ready, they will be admitted to the stem cell transplantation and cellular therapies ward of The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre’s Liverpool hospital. The CAR-T cells will be given to them in a transfusion that takes around 30 minutes.
As CAR-T is a very intensive treatment and people’s immune systems can react in different ways to it, patients will be closely monitored in The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre for the first few weeks afterwards.
Dr Muhammad Saif, Director of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapies at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, said:
CAR-T therapy is a highly-specialist immunotherapy treatment that has shown remarkable results for many patients.
Although the main use currently is for certain blood cancers that have not responded to other treatments, there is new evidence emerging that it could benefit other types of cancers and non-cancerous conditions such as immune disorders.
Until now, this treatment has not been available locally so patients from Cheshire and Merseyside, Lancashire, North Wales and the Isle of Man have had to travel to other parts of the UK to receive it. It is very exciting that they can now access this highly-innovative treatment close to home.
Joan Spencer, Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Chief Executive of The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, said:
As the region’s specialist cancer centre, our mission is to continually improve patient outcomes and experience by providing the most advanced cancer care close to home through our unique network of treatment locations across Cheshire and Merseyside.
Our new CAR-T therapy service will significantly benefit patients who are suitable for this treatment. It is an intensive therapy that involves a significant time in hospital or close to the hospital so patients can be closely monitored for the first 30 days afterwards. The fact that they can now have this treatment so much closer to home makes it a much more accessible and appealing option and is fantastic news for patients and their families.
Professor Rowan Pritchard Jones, NHS Cheshire and Merseyside’s Medical Director, said:
This is an important achievement and something that will make a real difference in securing better outcomes for eligible patients.
We are absolutely committed to ensuring Cheshire and Merseyside’s residents have access to highly-specialist, innovative cancer treatments closer to home and the CAR-T therapy service at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre in Liverpool is a fantastic example of that.
Dr Rubina Ahmed, Director of Research, Policy and Services at Blood Cancer UK, said:
It is fantastic news that CAR-T therapy will now be available locally for blood cancer patients in and around the Cheshire and Merseyside areas who need it. It makes this life-saving treatment a more accessible and viable option for patients, who may previously have had to travel for many hours for treatment.
The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre’s Haemato-Oncology team provide Cheshire and Merseyside’s most specialist blood cancer and stem cell transplantation service, as well as blood cancer care for the people of Liverpool.
The CAR-T service will be delivered by The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, supported by NHS Blood and Transplant and Liverpool Clinical Laboratories. Specialist teams in The Walton Centre and Royal Liverpool University Hospital will offer advice and support, where needed, for any patients who develop serious complications.
Additional quotes:
NHS Blood and Transplant
Dr James Griffin, Medical Director Cell, Apheresis & Gene Therapies, NHS Blood and Transplant, said: “NHSBT is uniquely placed to support the delivery of more ground-breaking cell and gene therapies such as CAR-T. We are delighted to strengthen and develop our existing partnership with The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust to support more patients in this region.
“NHSBT specialist nurses based with the hospital use a machine to collect white blood cells from the patient’s blood – the blood flows through the machine and it spins out the required cells. These cells are then sent to a production facility and are transformed into cancer fighting CAR-T cells. We are proud to help people access this specialist treatment locally.”
Liverpool Clinical Laboratories
Hannah Williams, Blood and Marrow Transplant Laboratory Manager at Liverpool Clinical Laboratories, said: “Becoming a CAR-T centre has been a long journey and a monumental achievement. It has been a real team effort across multiple disciplines, and thanks to the hard work and dedication of not only our lab team, but all involved, we are proud to be able to provide the best possible care for our patients.”
Cheshire and Merseyside Cancer Alliance
Jon Hayes, Managing Director of Cheshire and Merseyside Cancer Alliance, said: “This is a really important step forward in our region. CAR-T therapy is one of a number of innovative, ground-breaking treatments for cancer that are revolutionising the way we treat the disease and get better outcomes for our patients.
“Introducing any new treatment takes time, effort and dedication, and I would like to thank the team at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre for leading this development in collaboration with partner organisations.”
