HCA launches new CAR T-Cell therapy

HCA Healthcare UK has launched a new blood cancer treatment, Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell therapy (CAR T-Cell therapy).

This new treatment will be available at HCA UK at University College Hospital and The Christie Private Care from this spring to patients with certain types of lymphoma before it is introduced to patients with other blood cancers in the next few months.

CAR T-Cell therapy, often referred to as the ‘fifth pillar of cancer treatment’ is a unique treatment which uses a patient’s own T-cells to seek and destroy cancer cells, without the use of drugs.

Chair of the HCA Healthcare UK Blood Cancer Board Professor Stephen Mackinnon said: ‘CAR T-cell therapy is a complex treatment and will only be available at a small number of sites in the UK. HCA Healthcare UK will be one of the first JACIE-IEC accredited private providers in the UK to offer CAR T-cell therapy.

‘Blood cancer is the third biggest cancer killer in the UK however, CAR T-cell therapy is a game-changing treatment for many patients. So far, some patients who have undergone this treatment have shown a rapid and durable regression and remission that we haven’t observed in other recognised treatments.

‘This is a ‘first of a kind’ therapy and is a big moment for the treatment of cancer. CAR T-cell therapy has the potential to revolutionise the approach to cancer treatment moving forward.’