Cleveland-based University Hospitals opened its new $10 million immunotherapy cancer center, NBC affiliate WKYC reported Oct. 24.
The Wesley Center for Immunotherapy, named for the family who donated the $10 million for its construction, is located at Seidman Cancer Center.
Immunotherapy, which uses a patient's own immune system to identify and fight cancer, normally takes two to three weeks to begin. UH researchers have found a way to provide treatment in 24 hours.
"Now we can treat patients with lymphoma and leukemia and multiple myeloma with CAR T cell therapies with unheard of success," Koen van Besien, MD, PhD, UH Seidman Cancer Center's hematology chief, director of the Wesley Center for Immunotherapy, and the Don C. Dangler chair in stem cell research, told WKYC. "This is only the beginning of other advances we will learn from this experience, and we will, in the future, be able to offer better, more effective products."