Moffitt’s CAR T cell therapy helps Kissimmee man hit lymphoma
(Left to right) Dr. Frederick Locke, Dimas Padilla, Johanna Padilla.
Last Updated: Tuesday, April 25, 2017, Two:31 PM EDT
Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa is studying a fresh cancer treatment that is on the edge of getting approval from the Food and Drug Administration.
- CAR T cell therapy studied at Moffitt
- Dimas Padilla diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2011
- After latest treatment, has been in remission for seven months
- LINK: Moffitt Cancer Center
It has given 43-year-old Dimas Padilla of Kissimmee a reason to feast.
Padilla and his wifey, Johanna, spent the weekend on Clearwater Beach celebrating their 14th wedding anniversary and daughter’s 13th bday.
They were moments Padilla, a cancer survivor, didn’t think he’d live to see. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2011, and the cancer kept coming back.
“This third time, it was a little bit different because the chemo was not working and the tumors, they were growing,” he said. “They looked like golf ball-sac, massive all around my neck.”
Padilla feared he had only six months to live.
But Moffitt Cancer Center called him to participate in a clinical trial for CAR T cell therapy.
Dimas Padilla compared his tumors to a golf ball.
“We take out their normal immune system cells, called T-cells, ship them to a centralized facility where they’re re-programmed against a single target on the surface of their lymphoma cells,” said Dr. Frederick Locke, a medical oncologist with Moffitt.
“The cells are frozen and shipped back to us, where we thaw them out and infuse them into our patient, and those cells know where to go, they know what to do, they go and kill the lymphoma,” he said.
After experiencing side effects like high fever and blood pressure problems things turned around for Padilla.
“Within two to three days (the tumors) commenced melting entirely, like ice,” he said. “They went away. It was like incredible.”
Locke said that was the lymphoma going away.
“We’re eyeing results that we absolutely couldn’t expect to have with existing standard of care treatments,” he said.
His wifey tears up talking about her spouse’s recovery.
Dimas Padilla and his children
“I just can’t believe that he’s here and he is healthy and every day I wake up and I see him,” Johanna Padilla said. “And it’s like, ‘Wow you know,’ because he went from so, so bad, so, so bad to finish and utter remission.”
Dimas Padilla has been in remission for seven months.
“In my heart I’m very appreciative and grateful because I know that every single day is a bounty,” he said. “Because according to the way I looked on paper I wasn’t supposed to be here.
“So from that point, I’m very glad and grateful that every single day I can love it and I always help myself recall, ‘Wow I was gonna miss that. I was very likely gonna miss this. And I appreciate it more.”
Locke said the treatment could be FDA approved in about six months. He said Moffitt then plans to suggest it as standard care for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma patients.