Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Centre (MSCC), Narayana Health City directly imported a US FDA approved immunotherapy drug, to treat a paediatric patient aged 8 years old suffering from relapse of leukaemia. Subsequently the medical teams opted for allogenic matched sibling donor bone marrow transplant (BMT) to successfully resolve the disease.
 
The drug manufactured by Amgen was cleared by Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) under a patient-specific basis. This drug is a much-sought after therapy in the US and Europe for leukaemia. Our paediatric patient was administered the monoclonal antibody (bispecific) blinotumomab infusion for 28 days at a stretch. Now blinotumomab priced at Rs.25 lakh is yet to be marketed in India. Our hospital has a number of patients requiring the same drug,  Dr Sharat Damodar, clinical director, Mazumdar Shaw Medical Centre, sr consultant haematologist & head – bone marrow transplant unit, Narayana Health City said at a press conclave here.
 
The medical teams at the Narayana Health City opined that the novel immunotherapy could be the new way forward in relapsed and refractory cancers such as leukaemia. Apart from leukaemia, other types of cancers such as, lymphoma, lung cancer, prostate cancer and melanoma can be treated using immunotherapy.
 
The patient in 2012 was diagnosed of Pre B cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, at a renowned medical institution in Tamil Nadu and was advised to start on chemotherapy. Since the family was based in Bengaluru, the paediatric patient Rihaan was administered the same at the Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Centre. The maintenance treatment continued till June 2013 and had achieved near complete clearance of the disease. However, in August 2015, he suffered relapse of the leukaemia, he added.

According to Dr Nataraj K S, consultant haematologist & bone marrow transplant, MSCC, Narayana Health City, chemotherapy takes the carpet bombing approach to kill cancer cells whereas immunotherapy takes a targeted approach to destroy cancer cells. Remnant cells that were not responding to chemotherapy are destroyed and we could get a clearance of the disease, which is very crucial for us to take the patient for bone marrow transplant.
 
“Although blinotumomab is a wonder drug manifesting side-effects, MSCC has the expertise to monitor and control the adverse reactions,” explained Dr. Nataraj.

“After six months post treatment in July 2016, Rihaan is well and waiting to return to school. For any type of cancer, chemotherapy is the basic treatment. But patients are refractive to chemotherapy. Now immunotherapy can be used to treat cancers without BMT procedure, however in case of relapse or refractory cancers, bone marrow transplant may be required along with immunotherapy,” stated Dr Damodar.