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Groundbreaking Treatment Helping Those with Cancer at Phoenix Children’s Hospital

CAT-T cellular therapy is a life changing treatment, and one that’s being praised by a well-known cancer doctor in Phoenix. It’s a ground breaking.

At the moment, only one hospital in Arizona is approved to use the treatment, and hospital, Phoenix Children’s Hospital is one of only a handful of facilities in the United States who can perform the treatment.

At the Phoenix hospital, children from infancy to young adulthood can be given the treatment if chemotherapy failed after several attempts.


At the moment, patients with relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia are receiving the innovative therapy.

The process of being treated with CAT-T cellular therapy is incredible.

During treatment, the patient’s t-cells are removed from the blood by a dialysis-like machine and the t-cells.

After extraction, the patient’s t-cells are sent to a lab in New Jersey, the cells are genetically modified, frozen, shipped back to children’s hospital, thawed, and inserted into the patient as CAR-T cells.

After being modified, the CAR-T cells usually only target cancer cells. This is vastly different than chemotherapy, that targets all cells.

A doctor from the Phoenix Children’s Hospital, Dr. Roberta Adams, hopes the treatment will eventually replace chemotherapy.

“Chemotherapy is critical for curing many, many people, but when cancer proves itself to be resistant to that chemotherapy or responds but then recurs, then our ability to use targeted therapy has been very exciting,” says Dr. Adams.

The process of modifying cells takes 4 weeks. There are few side effects when the cells are placed back into the body, like high fever and viral infections, but they are easily managed.

Scientists are currently developing therapies and treatments similar to this for other types of cancer.

According to Dr. Adams, the therapy will be moving to additional Valley hospitals, and it will be available for adult patients with leukemia and lymphoma.