First Local Patient to Receive CAR T-Cell Therapy is Now Cancer Free

After 31 years with Miami-Dade Public Schools, Charlie Burr was finally enjoying retirement. But when the 58-year-old was diagnosed with cancer, his reaction was different than you might think.

“I said, ‘God, why not me? Why not me?’” Burr said.

Burr had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He went to see Denise Pereira, M.D., associate director of the Transplantation and Cell Therapy Program at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Burr faced a bone marrow transplant. Then, Pereira offered an alternative: a study using CAR T-cells.

“The T-cells are the soldiers of the immune system. Once those T-cells are removed and then intentionally modified … the cells are infused, the patient receives as a transfusion, the cells are now capable to see the cancer and attack and destroy,” Pereira explained.

Because Sylvester is the only National Cancer Institute designated center in South Florida, patients have access to cutting-edge clinical trials. Burr is the first patient to receive a form of CAR T-cell therapy and is now cancer free.

“Because those cells had come from a donor… you’re able to reduce the time he had to wait to be treated,” Pereira said. “I kept telling myself, this will go into books and you’re going to read about this in decades to come, because we, for patients who had otherwise no other options that we knew, we had exhausted everything that was otherwise available. All of a sudden there was a new hope. So, that was electrifying, very, very exciting to be part of that.”

“My thing was when they walked in my room, I told them it was just positive energy in here. Nothing negative,” Burr said. “When you touch that door handle, you should feel it. I said, ‘God got this whole room.’”

Burr is back to his true love of barbecuing during this Leukemia and Lymphoma Awareness Month.

“My mom is a great, great chef and she just put that in us to cook. And I love outdoor cooking. I love barbecuing,” Burr said.

He says Dr. Pereira and his faith pulled him through.

“I’m thankful that God put her in my life,” Burr said.

Video transcript compiled by Janna Ross for ‘Focusing on You: Innovations in Modern Medicine,’ a series of health care-related stories airing regularly on WPLG Local 10.  For more stories like this one, visit UHealth’s YouTube channel.

Tags: CAR T-cell therapy, Dr. Denise Pereira, focusing on you, lymphoma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma