Bobby, who served in the U.S. Army’s Special Operations Unit for 33 years, was deployed numerous times, providing 19 years of active combat to his country. It’s safe to say Bobby lived a fascinating, but dangerous, life and thought he had done and seen it all. That was until he was diagnosed with cancer at age 47 as he approached the end of his prominent military career.
Bobby thought something might be wrong when he had difficulty swallowing for several weeks, and nothing helped make the pain go away. Bobby’s doctor discovered a tumor on the base of his tongue and diagnosed him with a type of advanced B-cell blood cancer.
After going through his first round of treatment, Bobby went into remission. A year and a half later, Bobby’s cancer returned. He was treated again, and less than a year after that, his cancer relapsed yet again.
Bobby felt like he was losing ground and needed more options. His physician then introduced him to CAR-T cell therapy, which reprograms a patient’s own T cells into CAR-T cells, enhancing their ability to detect and destroy cancer cells. Bobby understood what CAR-T cell therapy was supposed to do. In military terms, Special Forces were ordered to engage the enemy; they went in for the capture, and then T cells stood guard.
Bobby is still in remission, thanks to his participation in a clinical trial for this innovative therapy, and he spends much of his free time training dogs. Bobby relates his CAR-T cell therapy to training dogs. Like trained dogs, CAR-T cells also seek out a target; in this case, advanced B-cell blood cancer.
Now, Bobby is able to spend time with his family and old army friends. He’s sharing his powerful story via My-T Heroes: The Story of CAR-T [my-t-heroes.com], an initiative created by Novartis to educate about this innovative type of therapy and inspire others to be hopeful about the future of cancer treatment.
