New Zealander has blood cancer cured, thanks to unique therapy
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A 36-YEAR-OLD New Zealander, Emma Holden, just got the all-clear in Shanghai after being told back home that her blood cancer had basically run out the clock. The treatment that saved her — CAR-T cell therapy (a custom reboot of your immune system that teaches your T-cells to hunt cancer) — was highlighted at an international hematology forum in Shanghai last month, where global specialists compared notes on how far the tech has come.
Holden, meanwhile, has become CAR-T’s unofficial international spokesperson, telling anyone who’ll listen that Shanghai gave her a second life.
The trip to Shanghai
Holden flew into Shanghai again on November 27, not for another round of treatment but for the medical equivalent of a victory lap: her final check-up. She’d already hit “complete remission” (no detectable cancer) shortly after her September procedure at SinoUnited Hospital. That week’s tests confirmed it — still cancer-free.
Her story is already well known in New Zealand. She and her family documented her battle with multiple myeloma (a common blood cancer that starts in bone marrow) to raise money for the trip and to keep other patients informed. Her updates were frank, sometimes bleak, and gained her a community of people following every step of her Shanghai gamble.
“When people ask if they should come to Shanghai, I tell them to go — and go early,” she says. She was diagnosed in 2019. After multiple rounds of chemotherapy and stem cell transplants (a sort of immune-system reset) in New Zealand, her body was exhausted. Shanghai wasn’t a second opinion; it was the last card left in the deck.
The long road to CAR-T
CAR-T sounds sleek and sci-fi — doctors collect your immune cells, reprogram them into cancer killers, then put them back in — but the process is anything but smooth.
When Holden first came to Shanghai in March, she was extremely weak. Previous treatments had left her cells in poor condition, and repeated attempts to harvest usable ones kept failing. She had to fly back to New Zealand just to recover, then return to Shanghai to try again.
The September round finally worked. The cells took. The cancer didn’t stand a chance.
“The process is challenging. But the result is so good,” she said. “Shanghai’s medical capability is amazing, and the staff are so professional. I’ll come back as a tourist, not a patient.”
Back home now, Holden has returned to normal work and normal life — the kind doctors told her she wouldn’t have. The kind she crossed an ocean to fight for.
Dr Lily Zhou, Holden’s attending physician at Shanghai SinoUnited Hospital, said Holden’s recovery wasn’t just a win — it was the kind of case that forces doctors to take a breath. “A very challenging case,” she pointed out, the kind that spotlights just how far Shanghai’s CAR-T program has come.
“China is in a leading position globally when it comes to CAR-T,” Zhou says. “Our clinical research, individualized treatment plans, medication options, efficiency and hands-on experience — they’re all world-class. And the cost here is much lower than in Western countries.”
One overseas specialist attending the forum was, in Zhou’s words, stunned. Some of the CAR-T procedures still stuck in trial phases in the United States, while Shanghai has already been using them in routine clinical practice.
“She was so impressed by China’s CAR-T development,” Zhou said — a rare moment of professional awe in a field where breakthroughs are hard-won and harder to scale.
Dr Lin Yi from the Mayo Clinic — one of the world’s top medical centers — said that what she saw in China is a genuine shift in where innovation is happening.
“China has a real opportunity to step onto the global stage and benefit patients everywhere,” she added.
Lin toured local hospitals and joined the CAR-T forum, coming away with a clear verdict: Shanghai doesn’t just have the science — it has the infrastructure to treat international patients at scale.
“I’m really impressed,” she gushed. “Not just by the medical expertise and experience, but by the whole package — the way teams here connect with patients and with their home doctors before they ever get on a flight. That early coordination is huge. Every patient arrives with different risks, and this model of care sets them up for success. When they get to China, everything is already aligned for the best possible outcome.”
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