Individualized cancer therapies – free from cancer after a long battle

Changing blood cells in the laboratory

Manuel Schibli also benefited from the new possibilities of targeted cancer therapy. The 25-year-old from the canton of Aargau was an exceptionally fit young man when he was diagnosed with blood cancer around four years ago. By then, he was going to the gym five times a week and even took part in the Swiss Natural Bodybuilding Championships once. But suddenly he was no longer equally efficient. He felt tired, had a headache and sometimes blacked out. Schibli went to his family doctor and had his blood taken. “A short time later, I got a call: I should go to the emergency room immediately.” Unsuspecting, he packed a few clothes in a bag and got into the car. That same evening, a few examinations later, he was transferred by ambulance and received in a wheelchair. “That was surreal. Otherwise, I felt totally healthy.”

Schibli initially fought the cancer with chemotherapy, and finally with a blood stem cell transplant. He describes the following days in hospital as the hardest time of his life. “I lay half-dead in bed for days. It felt like I had demons in my body.” But not only that: it turned out that the cancer had returned as strongly as at the beginning of the therapy.

The diagnosis he received opened up a new possibility. Schibli suffered from acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), which is relatively rare in adults. An immunotherapy called CAR-T has been available for this specific form of blood cancer for a few years now. This involves removing certain white blood cells – the T lymphocytes – from the patient, genetically modifying them in the laboratory and reintroducing them. In this way, the body’s own defense system is induced to destroy the harmful blood cells.

In Schibli’s case, the therapy was a complete success: he has been cancer-free for around a year. He is also going to the gym regularly again. “Priorities have shifted somewhat,” he admits. Instead of just lifting weights, he trains endurance more often. “On nice days with my new racing bike.” Because his immune system is limited due to the disease, Schibli takes several medications. However, he draws a lot of positives from his long battle against cancer: “The illness has made me mentally stronger and more relaxed.”

Manuel Schibli

Barbara Marty also says that she is much more relaxed. And this despite the fact that she is physically limited even without cancer. She also suffers from the lung disease COPD, a “smoker’s leg” and a “Charcot foot”. She also needs Spitex twice a week for drainage. Despite all this, she says: “I have most of my life behind me. So I’m taking all the more time to enjoy the rest.” She talks about her wild garden with slow worms and newts at home in the Zurich Oberland, her two dogs and cat and, above all, her three grown-up children. She recently fulfilled a lifelong dream with them: a trip across Germany to the island of Rügen in a motorhome. “I can’t be spontaneous anymore,” she says. “But I’m very grateful that it’s still possible at all.”