Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center announced that eligible patients now have access to a fully outpatient CAR T-cell therapy program. Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, often referred to as CAR-T, is an advanced immunotherapy that genetically engineers a patient’s own T-cells (white blood cells) to recognize, target, and kill cancer cells. While other providers offer inpatient CAR T-cell therapies where a lengthy hospital stay is necessary, Mary Bird Perkins is the first cancer center in the region to offer this service in an outpatient setting.
CAR-T therapy uses T-cells that are collected from a patient’s blood and sent to a lab to be modified so that they can find and destroy cancer cells. These modified cells become “CAR-T cells” – cellular cancer fighting machines deployed within the patient’s body. This therapy is primarily used to treat certain blood cancers—leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma—often when other treatments have failed. In fact, patients will usually have at least one to two other types of treatments before they have their CAR-T treatment.
Mary Bird Perkins will treat patients at its cancer center on Essen Lane. If a patient develops an inpatient need for post-infusion support, this will be provided at Baton Rouge General Medical Center’s Bluebonnet campus.