The New York Times reports that CAR T-cell therapy, a kind of “living drug” that modifies patients’ immune cells to help them attack misbehaving ones, has been used with significant success to treat some cancers, particularly of the blood. A growing body of evidence has suggested that the therapy can also treat a severe form of lupus that, at best, can be managed as a lifelong condition and, at worst, resists treatment and can lead to organ failure and death.

“It’s really promising, and honestly the first therapy that we’ve talked about as a cure,” said Lisa R. Sammaritano, MD, rheumatologist at HSS, and the lead author on a set of recently updated guidelines for lupus treatment. Until now, she said, “we haven’t had a cure — we’ve had control.”

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