Northside Hospital Cancer Institute is among select centers in the country to offer chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, a type of immunotherapy, for adult patients with certain types of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Yescarta is the first-ever, FDA-approved CAR T-cell therapy to treat adults with certain types of large B-cell lymphoma who have not responded to or who have relapsed after at least two other kinds of treatment. The treatment is one of several therapies available from Northside Hospital Cancer Institutes newly launched Immunotherapy Program.

Immunotherapy works by taking immune cells, genetically modifying them to be better tumor-fighting immune cells, multiplying them to great numbers (tens of thousands), and then infusing them into the patient where they can find and attack cancer. Such transplants represented the first definitive proof of the human immune systems capacity to cure cancer. Now, through studying CAR T-cells, cancer researchers are developing new ways to strengthen and empower a patients own immune system.

To date, approximately 45 cancer centers nationwide are certified to offer this new treatment. Northside is one of just two facilities in Georgia that has the capacity and facilities to manage the toxicity of immunotherapy agents and that is certified to offer Yescarta.

For more information about the Northside Hospital Cancer Institute Immunotherapy Program, visit Northside.com/immunotherapy or BMTGa.com.