A team at the Royal Free has discovered that patients who achieve remission after chemotherapy develop a type of immune cell called “natural killer cells” which kill any tumour cells left after the chemotherapy treatment.
In preparation for receiving the cells, the patient underwent a further course of chemotherapy and a single dose of radiotherapy. Her daughter, the donor, was connected to a machine which removed blood from both arms over a period of two to three hours. The cells were transfused into the patient and less than a week later tests showed that the vital cells had “taken”.
