Hoag Family Cancer Institute is proud to expand its advanced treatment offerings with the launch of a new cellular therapy program, reinforcing its commitment to exceptional, leading-edge cancer care. Hoag is the first in Orange County to offer this innovative, FDA-approved therapy for malignant blood and lymphatic cancers, and was also the first to provide cell therapy for solid tumors through its robust clinical research program.
Cellular therapy offers a multitude of different types of treatment options that Hoag is committed to adopting into the new standard of practice to help fight different types of cancer, even when other treatments are no longer effective.
Cellular Therapy is a type of immunotherapy, or immuno-oncology, where a patient’s own immune system helps fight and destroy cancer cells.
The immune system works by keeping track of all the substances found in the body. Any new substances the immune system doesn’t recognize raises an alarm, causing the immune system to attack it. CAR-T therapy is a treatment to get cells called T cells (a type of white blood cell) to fight cancer. In CAR-T cell therapies, T cells are collected from the patient’s blood and are altered in a cell-therapy lab by adding a gene for a receptor, which helps the T-cells attach to the specific cancer cell antigen. The CAR-T cells are then returned to the patient.
Hoag proudly offers multiple research trials using cellular therapy. These trials include CAR-T cell therapy, modified T-Cell receptor therapy and natural killer cell therapy. These trials treat many solid and liquid cancer diagnoses including lymphoma, myeloma, lung, liver, Merkel cell, and target specific mutations.
Hoag is proud to offer access to board-certified specialists who are at the forefront of delivering CAR-T therapy. They are available and currently accepting new patients.