New Treatment Saves Children With Terminal Brain Cancer

新型疗法挽救晚期脑癌患儿

New Scientist Podcasts

2026-08-11

12 分钟
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Episode 391 Brain tumours are the most common and most deadly form of solid tumours in children. But a brand new kind of immunotherapy has shown incredible promise, saving four terminally ill children. By using a child’s own immune cells, this new treatment seems to work better than existing immunotherapies and causes fewer adverse side effects. Although it saved just 4 out of 33 participants, it’s still encouraging and researchers hope to continue trials. Join James Woodford and Alice Klein to find out how this new therapy works, how researchers plan to improve it, why brain tumours are so common and difficult to treat and what the future of treatment looks like. To read more about these stories, visit https://www.newscientist.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  • More time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most.

  • Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify.

  • Every parent's worst nightmare is their child getting a brain tumour.

  • Brain tumours are the most common type of solid tumour in children

  • and also the most deadly because they're notoriously hard to treat.

  • But happily, there is now some hope on the horizon with a brand new kind of immunotherapy resulting

  • in remarkable recoveries in a handful of children with terminal brain tumours in a small clinical trial.

  • This story is personal for me because my young nephew, Jeremiah,

  • he died 16 years ago from a brain tumour before anything like this was possible.

  • From New Scientist, this is the world, the universe and us.

  • And I'm reporter James Woodford.

  • I'm joined by my colleague, Alice Klein, who has just written a story about this promising new treatment.

  • Alice, how does this all work?

  • Yeah, so the name of the treatment is tumor-associated antigen T-cell therapy, which is a bit of a mouthful.

  • So it's called TAAT for short.

  • It basically involves taking a child's immune cells out of their body.

  • Training them in the lab to become better

  • and stronger at fighting their brain tumour and then putting them back into the child.

  • Okay, because our immune systems do naturally try to fight cancers in the body, right?

  • So sometimes they just need some extra help?