Cancer therapy approved by FDA uses bodys own cells as a living drug [Video]

After undergoing surgery, radiation and three different therapies, Scott Goedeke faced a tough reality: The cancer that first surfaced on the roof of his mouth had spread to a lymph node in his neck. So the 58-year-old health-care consultant agreed to an experimental treatment that would deploy his own cells to destroy it.

“I have to do this,” he recalled thinking at the time.

His medical team at the Siteman Cancer Center in St. Louis extracted one tumor, identified the cells that could attack the disease and multiplied them in a lab. Billions of cells were then infused back into his body in the hope of supercharging his body’s natural defenses, overwhelming the cancer.

Six weeks later, the tumor had shrunk significantly.

Now this first-of-its-kind cancer therapy has crossed a major milestone. On Friday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its use to treat adults with a skin cancer like Goedeke’s – melanoma that has spread or …