KYMRIAH - THE NEXT STEP IN CANCER TREATMENT

Hello Guys, so this is a post about a not so recent discovery I learnt about last year. It is about the US making headway in the fight against cancer.

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The drug is called Kymriah known as the “Living Drug” as it fights the cancerous cells by sourcing, finding and attacking the specific cells that cause cancer. It does this by modifying the patient’s immune cells through the therapy better known as CAR-T therapy.

Although this treatment is only for patients with leukaemia (cancer in blood forming tissues) and it is going to cost at least $450,000 (over 150,000,000 naira) for patients who are going to be selected. While this is an incredulous sum of money, it is a way forward at least and with time might become more affordable to the masses. Though for now it is only accessible to people in the United States, it would eventually reach other countries like my country Nigeria, where cancer kills about 72,000 people annually.

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The news about the drug came out sometime last year around September, and it will be released hopefully sometime this year.

So in a way, this post is just like a message for hope to those who have cancer or those with loved ones who have cancer. New discoveries are being made and though they are expensive for now, it is a step towards a cancer free future. We are all hopeful for it and we hope it will be a major breakthrough.

Thanks for reading.