Battling blood cancer in my 20s, I put my faith in a clinical trial for a promising new CAR-T treatment.

But does it actually work?

By Hayden Smith, 7 June 2021

‘It was mid-March at Fiona Stanley Hospital in Perth, and a squadron of doctors and nurses had gathered by my bed. Some were methodically checking clipboards, the rest watched on silently. It felt like a scene from ER. Emily was waiting patiently outside the room with my parents and youngest brother, who’d flown over from Queensland. Minutes earlier, the new CAR-T cells had been returned to my body through a central line – an unnervingly long tube inserted in my neck.

I had agreed to join the trial in early January, following several restless nights and lengthy family discussions while visiting my home town of Toowoomba over Christmas. We saw it as an opportunity to access some innovative, albeit daunting, treatment’.

READ Hayden Smith’s story from the Weekend Australian Magazine here  Will the new CAR-T therapy cure my blood cancer