Does CAR T-cell therapy use your own cells?

Yes. CAR T-cell therapy uses your own immune cells.

It is a type of T-cell transfer therapy, which makes your own immune cells better able to attack cancer. The process involves collecting your own T cells, growing large numbers of them in the lab, and then giving them back to you through a needle in your vein.

In CAR T-cell therapy specifically, your T cells are changed in the lab so they make a protein called CAR (chimeric antigen receptor). This protein helps the T cells attach to specific proteins on the surface of cancer cells so they can attack the cancer.

Growing the cells can take 2 to 8 weeks, and you may have chemotherapy first to reduce other immune cells so the transferred T cells work better. Your care team can explain each step for your treatment.