MADRID 9 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Different multicenter and international studies are testing the effectiveness and safety of CAR-T therapies to treat and cure autoimmune diseases, such as Lupus with or without renal affectation, as reported by the University of Navarra Clinic (CUN), which participates in some of them.
“We are facing a new horizon that is a very important leap for the treatment of autoimmune diseases, because we went from a paradigm that consisted of curbing the process of these pathologies to a possibility of cureing them,” said specialist José María Mora, of the CUN nephrology service.
CAR-T therapies are currently used mainly against blood tumors. The procedure consists in extracting blood from the patient to separate its components and obtain a type of cells, called T cells, which are modified in the laboratory by genetic engineering before being transfused back to the person’s body to combat the disease.
The CUN works on the development of these treatments for Lupus as part of the Cart-Onel consortium, formed by more than 40 Spanish centers, which aims to expand to Latin America to develop independent studies. The clinic also cooperates with the pharmaceutical industry to offer more opportunities and access to innovative drugs to people who need it.
Mora has detailed that in progress are intended for patients suffering from Lupus with or without renal affectation. This autoimmune disease affects more than five million people in the world and causes inflammation and damage to joints, skin, kidneys or heart, among other organs. Its main cause is a deficit operation of the immune system that, by mistake, faces the body of the person who suffers from it.
At present, patients with these autoimmune pathologies are treated with immunosuppressive medications to control the disease avoiding shoots, but without healing it in most cases.
The specialist of the Rheumatology Service of CUN Enrique Ornilla has pointed out that research therapy would be especially aimed at patients who have not properly responded to conventional treatments or who are dependent on them in the long term.
In addition, he stressed that they would also benefit from the same people with other autoimmune diseases, such as vasculitis, scleroderma or myositis, the latter even in pediatric ages.
