Cancer Treatment Helps 3 Wait-Listed Patients Get Kidneys

Brittney Patterson spent 27 years cycling on and off dialysis machines, watching two kidney transplants fail and waiting for a match that seemed impossible to find. Today, at 38, she's celebrating a transplant that medical science said she couldn't have.

Patterson was one of three patients at NYU Langone Health and the University of Pennsylvania who received kidney transplants after doctors repurposed a blood cancer treatment to make the impossible possible. Published in The New England Journal of Medicine, the groundbreaking trial offers hope to roughly 5,000 Americans considered too difficult to match with donor kidneys.

These highly sensitized patients have immune systems loaded with antibodies that would attack almost any donor organ. Their compatibility scores sit at 99.9 percent or higher, meaning they'd wait an average of 10 years for just one donor offer. Many never find a match at all.

The research teams used CAR T cell therapy, which reprograms a patient's own immune cells, to wipe out the troublesome antibodies. Originally developed at Penn Medicine for blood cancer and FDA approved in 2017, the treatment targets two types of immune cells responsible for creating antidonor antibodies.

After receiving the therapy, all three patients saw their antibody levels drop dramatically. Their compatibility scores improved enough to make previously incompatible donor kidneys suddenly viable. None have shown signs of organ rejection since their transplants.

The treatment proved remarkably safe. Patients avoided the severe side effects sometimes seen in cancer treatment, and their healthy immune cells gradually recovered over time. The two initial patients tolerated the therapy well with no serious complications.

Dr. Robert Montgomery, chair of NYU Langone's Department of Surgery, calls it a boundary-pushing collaboration. "This treatment opens up new options for patients and could save thousands more lives every year," he said.

The Ripple Effect

More than 91,000 Americans currently wait for kidney transplants, but this breakthrough extends far beyond those three successful procedures. The trial proves CAR T therapy can work outside cancer treatment, potentially transforming care for the 5,000 highly sensitized patients who face the longest odds.

Future trial phases will test higher doses and enroll more patients to confirm the treatment's long-term safety and effectiveness. Each success brings researchers closer to making impossible matches routine.

Patterson describes her transformation in simple, powerful terms. "My skin looks brighter. My eyes are bright and clear. It's been a whole big change, and I'm just so grateful," she said.

For patients who've spent years tethered to dialysis machines without hope, this therapy represents something more than medical innovation: it's a second chance at life that didn't exist before.