Late stage cancer remission technology

Praava Health, a health startup focusing on patient-centric care, organised a seminar yesterday on the breakthrough CAR T Cell Therapy — Lasting Remission in Late Stage Cancers at its recently-inaugurated family health centre.

Dr Rana Quraishi, the Director of New Ventures at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, was the keynote speaker at the event, which was facilitated by cancer immunologist and Praava's Senior Director of Cancer Diagnostics, Dr Zaheed Husain, under whose leadership Praava is introducing Bangladesh's first molecular cancer diagnostics (Polymerase Chain Reaction, or PCR) lab for breast, cervical, colorectal, and lung cancers.

The seminar, organised by Praava Health as part of a series of continuing medical education (CME) sessions aimed at providing information on cutting-edge medical innovations as well as topical health issues, was attended by medical health professionals and cancer researchers from across the country.

At the seminar, Dr Quraishi presented on CAR T Cell (chimeric antigen receptor T-cell) therapy, a new type of cancer treatment that involves harvesting T cells — a type of immune system cell — from the blood, reprogramming them genetically to find and destroy cancer cells and then returning the immune cells to the patient.

So far the therapy has been used on patients with blood cancers such as leukaemia, and lymphoma who have exhausted all other treatment alternatives. New cancer therapies are gaining importance for Bangladesh, where cancer is the sixth leading cause of death. New therapies such as CAR T Cell highlight the importance of accurately diagnosing these markers. Molecular cancer diagnostics is playing a crucial role in the early detection of cancer markers and identification of effective treatments. Praava Health is thrilled to be bringing the latest technology in molecular cancer diagnostics to Bangladesh.