A new study found leukemia patients who were treated with genetically modified versions of their own immune cells had a remission rate of 88 percent. 

"These extraordinary results demonstrate that cell therapy is a powerful treatment for patients who have exhausted all conventional therapies," Michel Sadelain, MD, PhD, Director of the Center for Cell Engineering at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and one of the study's senior authors said in a news release. "Our initial findings have held up in a larger cohort of patients, and we are already looking at new clinical studies to advance this novel therapeutic approach in fighting cancer."

Adult B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) is a blood cancer that develops in the B-cells; it has a high relapse rate and only about 30 percent of patients respond to chemotherapy. 

In the study 16 patients with relapsed B-ALL were treated with a "fusion" of their own genetically modified T-cells that were "reeducated" to seek out and destroy cancer cells containing the protein CD19. 

Even the patients who still showed signs of disease after the treatment had a response rate of 78 percent, which is an impressive jump from the response rate of chemotherapy. 

Dennis J. Billy was one of the first patients to receive this therapy two years ago; he received a bone marrow transplant and has been in remission and back at work since 2011. 

"Memorial Sloan Kettering was the first center to report successful outcomes using this CD19-targeted approach in B-ALL patients,"Renier Brentjens, MD, PhD, Director of Cellular Therapeutics at Memorial Sloan Kettering and one of the study's senior authors said in the news release. "It's extremely gratifying to witness the astonishing results firsthand in my patients, having worked for more than a decade developing this technology from the ground up."

Researchers are working to see if this type of therapy could be effective in treating other types of cancers.