TeachableMedicalNews article 06282021
Teachable moment in classrooms:
- cellular basis of life chapter – some proteins are located in the plasma membrane
- blood chapter – hematopoiesis (blood cell formation) in red bone marrow
- immune system chapter – role of T-cells in immune defense
The news item: Recently an article reported on the struggles of a patient suffering with acute lymphoblastic leukemia:
Richmond woman benefits from game-changing cancer treatment now offered at VCU
If you knew what Rachel Elliot has been through you might call it a miracle that she is alive and well today, but hers was a miracle over a decade in the making.
The article described a new treatment called Kymriah, a Car-T type treatment, and stated that it involves genetic engineering T-cells.
So, Why Do I Care?? Some cancers resist traditional chemotherapy treatments. Patients suffering from those cancers have very limited life expectancy. While the total number of ALL cases, close to 6,000 each year, are relatively few, children under the age of 5 are affected mostly. New cancer treatment approaches that think outside the box are the treatments that bring hope, and eventually cures to those patients.
Plain English, Please!!!
First, let’s talk about what acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is. This type of leukemia is the cancer of the red bone marrow, and the uncontrolled division of some cells in the bone marrow leads to a large