Healthy Living

Bag of Cells Sent to California to Be Used to Kill Lymphoma

Side effects and intended effects

Then he was struck with a fever. His immune system, now aware that there was a dangerous foreigner in the body, had gone into full attack mode. The fever was from cytokine release syndrome, which is when the inflammation affects the whole body to a large degree.

Both a blessing and a curse, it is the way of the body to fight the cancer, but too much can also cause a life-threatening fever.

Matthews’ fever stopped his hospital walks but not his life. There were other effects such as a severe headache. The inflammation even partially affected his brain, so sometimes he now struggles to find the right word.

But the CAR-T therapy had worked. A month after, he had been reunited with his genetically engineered T cells, Matthews went in for a check up. His cancerous tumor had declined in size. It was not yet defeated, but the possibility remained there.

Though currently in the “partial response” camp, the T cells are still at work in Matthews’ body. By the time he visits the hospital again his cancer may have been vanquished entirely, a “complete response.”