考研外刊精读|脑癌治疗新突破:免疫疗法如何让肿瘤＂消失＂

🧬脑癌治疗新突破：免疫疗法如何让肿瘤"消失"

曾被医学界视为"不治之症"的胶质母细胞瘤，正迎来革命性治疗曙光。一种基于CAR-T细胞的新型疗法，让晚期患者的肿瘤在数周内迅速缩小...

📖 文章选段（考研改编版）

One morning in April 2023, Marcela Maus, a cancer researcher at Mass General Research Institute in Boston, got an urgent call from her colleague Bryan Choi.

"He called me, and he's like, 'Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!' And I'm like, 'What is going on?'" Dr. Maus recalled. Dr. Choi, usually calm, was not given to outbursts. Dr. Maus hurried to his office.

The day before, they had treated their first patient in a clinical trial for an aggressive brain cancer called glioblastoma^①, infusing genetically modified white blood cells directly into the fluid surrounding his brain.

They had been up all night worrying, especially after the 74-year-old patient developed a fever. Dr. Choi had ordered an MRI scan.

When Dr. Maus arrived, images from the MRI were loading on his screen. They stared in astonishment: The patient's tumor, which a few days before had appeared as a bright blob the size of a strawberry, had almost entirely disappeared.^句1

"My first instinct was that there was something wrong with the MRI scanner," Dr. Choi admitted. But follow-up scans confirmed the miraculous result.

Several weeks later, they treated a second patient, Tom Fraser, a civil engineer from New York. To their astonishment, the process repeated itself: the infusion, the fever, and the rapid regression of the tumor.^②

"It was almost like clockwork," Dr. Maus said. After a third patient showed similar response, she paused the trial to document these unprecedented^③ results.

⚕️ 医学背景：胶质母细胞瘤的挑战

Glioblastoma^① is the most common type of malignant brain cancer in adults. It can strike at any age, and it's nearly uniformly fatal.

Patients are often diagnosed in emergency rooms after the tumor causes seizures, sudden loss of speech, or loss of limb control. The median time from diagnosis to death is just over a year.^④

The standard treatment hasn't changed in decades: "maximal safe resection" surgery to remove as much tumor as possible. But because glioblastoma^① is adept at infiltrating^⑤ the brain, surgeons almost always leave cancer behind, which quickly regrows.

Roger Stupp, a glioblastoma expert, says the disease has proved to be "a graveyard of ideas."^句2 Decades of research have yielded little progress.

🔬 科学突破：免疫疗法的革命

Within the past 20 years, immunotherapy^⑥ has upended expectations in oncology. It proceeds from a simple premise: The human immune system is excellent at attacking anything it recognizes as foreign or abnormal.^句3

Drs. Maus and Choi thought they'd found a way to harness the immune system's all-purpose killer: the T cell. By extracting T cells from a patient's blood, editing their DNA in a lab, and reintroducing them at the tumor site, they could make the body attack cancer as it would a virus.^句4

This engineered T cell has a special name: a CAR-T cell^⑦ (Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell).

Tom Fraser remembers the day of his infusion: "The room was crowded with doctors, nurses and scientists. There was a sense that history was being made." Twenty-four days later, he walked out of the hospital, weak but with his tumor in near-total remission^⑧.

"There's been a revolution in understanding cancer and the tools to tackle it," says Daniel Haber, director of the Mass General Cancer Center.

Until recently, the biggest exception to immunotherapy's success has been in solid tumors^⑨ like pancreatic cancer and glioblastoma. So if this approach works for glioblastoma—perhaps the hardest case—there's not a cancer that would seem to be out of reach.^句5

💭 现实挑战与未来展望

After publishing their results in the New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers heard from oncologists worldwide. "They're desperate," Dr. Choi says, "because there's just nothing out there for these patients."

Hundreds of people with glioblastoma have contacted Mass General about the study, but Dr. Maus had room for only 18 more patients in the trial.^⑩ "It's heartbreaking to turn people away," she admits.

The treatment also faces formidable^⑪ obstacles, especially cost. Producing CAR-T cells is labor-intensive: T cells must be extracted, genetically altered, and reinfused. The treatment can cost $500,000 to $1 million.

Dr. Maus is quick to point out the limits of what this initial trial has proved. "I feel like this was a double or a triple," she says. "It's not a home run."^句6

Yet her mentor, Carl June—who developed the first successful CAR-T therapy for leukemia—is more optimistic. "I think by 2029, we're going to have FDA approval of CAR-T cells for glioblastoma,"^句7 he predicts.

🧠 考研核心要点解析

🔑 重点专业词汇

📝 长难句精析

句1：The patient's tumor, which a few days before had appeared as a bright blob the size of a strawberry, had almost entirely disappeared.

【结构分析】
主语：The patient's tumor
非限制性定语从句：which had appeared as... (修饰tumor)
比喻成分：a bright blob the size of a strawberry
谓语：had almost entirely disappeared

【翻译技巧】"the size of a strawberry"译为"草莓大小"，保持英文比喻的生动性。

【考研应用】which引导的非限制性定语从句是考研英语高频考点。

句4：By extracting T cells from a patient's blood, editing their DNA in a lab, and reintroducing them at the tumor site, they could make the body attack cancer as it would a virus.

【结构分析】
方式状语：By extracting..., editing..., and reintroducing... (三个动名词短语并列)
主句：they could make the body attack cancer
比较状语从句：as it would a virus (省略attack)

【省略现象】"as it would (attack) a virus"是考研常见省略结构。

【写作借鉴】"By doing A, B, and C, ..."结构清晰描述过程。

句5：So if this approach works for glioblastoma—perhaps the hardest case—there's not a cancer that would seem to be out of reach.

【结构分析】
条件状语从句：if this approach works for glioblastoma
插入语：perhaps the hardest case
主句：there's not a cancer
定语从句：that would seem to be out of reach

【双重否定】"not...out of reach"相当于"all within reach"，强调语气。

【写作亮点】使用插入语补充信息，使句子层次丰富。

💡 考研写作迁移技巧

1. 科技突破描述模板
原句：A new approach has upended expectations in [field].
迁移：Artificial intelligence has upended expectations in medical diagnosis.

2. 研究方法描述
原句：By doing A, B, and C, researchers can achieve D.
迁移：By collecting data, analyzing patterns, and testing hypotheses, scientists can make new discoveries.

3. 谨慎乐观表达
原句：This was a double or a triple, not a home run.
迁移：The policy achieved partial success—a step forward, but not a complete solution.

4. 未来预测句式
原句：I think by [year], we're going to have [achievement].
迁移：Experts predict that by 2030, renewable energy will dominate the market.

🎯 阅读题型预测

细节理解题可能考点：
1. CAR-T细胞疗法的具体步骤
2. 胶质母细胞瘤的传统治疗局限
3. 免疫疗法的基本原理

推理判断题可能考点：
1. 从"graveyard of ideas"推断既往研究状况
2. 从治疗费用推断普及面临的挑战
3. 从患者数量限制推断临床试验的局限性

观点态度题可能考点：
1. Marcela Maus对其研究成果的态度
2. 不同专家对CAR-T疗法前景的看法差异
3. 作者对免疫疗法整体发展的倾向性

📊本文学习价值总结

掌握11个医学/科研高频词汇 | 解析3个考研典型长难句 | 学习科技类文章阅读技巧

适合打印学习，建议用不同颜色标记：
蓝色-专业词汇 | 绿色-句式结构 | 橙色-写作迁移

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