High COVID has put a lot of things on
hold for some that includes medical
procedures deemed nonessential,
but some hospitals are starting to get
back on their feet when it comes to that,
and rescheduling all of those
non essential surgeries.
Those that could wait over at Saint Lukes.
They're taking it one step further
by offering a new cancer treatment,
the first of its kind in the gem state,
it's called Car T cellular therapy.
Right now it's approved for use in
several different types of blood cancers,
and it's common so common that every 3
minutes someone in the US is diagnosed with.
With blood cancer this year more
than 186,000 new cases are expected
in the United States alone.
By now, any Idahoans looking to get
the treatment this card T treatment
would have to travel out of state
to places like Seattle or Portland,
but by April they'll be able to get
that treatment right here in boy.
See here's Andrew Bart line.
The word cure isn't thrown around
often by healthcare professionals
treating cancer patients.
I think we're a long ways
away from there right now,
but Carty cellular therapy has Saint
Luke's. Doctor Travis Williams
close to making an exception.
There is a possibility that patients
will not have any evidence of disease.
Five years later.
The problem with some of that is so
it by definition we call that a cure.
Some of these therapies have only
been approved for the last year,
so we don't have five years of data
to say whether or not they're cured.
How is it, I guess,
administered to a patient?
I understand it's like
an Ivy, is that right?
The patients own immune system
cells are removed from the
patient via a pheresis procedure.
Like if you go to donate platelets
or plasma at the Red Cross,
but we collect their T cells and then they're
sent for manufacturing and then the patient.
Once those cells are made,
and we're sure that they're viable,
the patient gets a little bit of chemotherapy
to suppress their immune system,
and then those cells are
infused into the patient,
just like through an Ivy.
Almost immediately,
within a day or two,
you can see expansion of those
cells and they go to work and
start killing the cancer cells.
Doctor Williams says this is a
one time treatment that's backed
by more than 25 years of research
and the results are promising.
The standard chemotherapy for
relapsed lymphoma patient only.
Maybe 1/5 of those people
would be alive at at one year,
and we're talking about 50 to 60% of
those people being alive at five years.
Cost for something like this is it
can't be cheap I imagine.
It varies just a little bit and and
again payers are looking at this.
The cost in general for the
manufactured product itself ranges
between about 300,000 and 450,000.
It's a one time administration and
with the potential for cure and so
yes it has a high price tag with it.
Doctor Williams says patients will have
to be monitored for 30 days after the
treatment and they must live within
20 minutes of the Medical Center to
manage potential side effects like.
Fever, chills, low blood pressure
and neurological complications.
We want patients and their caregivers
to be close by because those
things can change very rapidly.
Saint Luke's plans to provide the first
card T cellular therapy in the Gem state,
and Doctor Williams believes the
technology will expand from here and
later treat more types of cancer.
This is the wave of the future,
and I would tell you that
are the goal of cancer.
Therapy is always been to unlock the
immune system and let it kill cancer.
These cancer cells have.
Evaded the immune system or
our part of the immune system
and now we're unleashing the
immune system back on itself.
Saint Luke's has been fund raising
for two years now to bring this
treatment to Idaho equipment and
construction costs for a new space.
It's gonna be roughly one and a half
million dollars through a matching donor.
Saint Luke says they're about halfway there.
Ryan, it's a pretty cool process.
This whole idea of the immune system.
Kind of doing it almost.
I don't want to say I don't know
I'm speaking out of school here,
but the mRNA thing kind of teaching
the body to fight it on its own.
I don't know if it's the same concept,
but it's still pretty cool
and it's also pretty cool.
Andrew, that we're talking about stuff
going on at the hospital that doesn't
have to do with COVID you told me.
This morning when I woke up,
I was going to do a story with Saint
Luke's wasn't COVID I'd call you a liar.
No thanks and you very much.