CAR-T Meeting 2026 | Does cellular immunotherapy represent the most promising approach for treating patients with T-ALL?
Nicola Maciocia, MBChB, PhD, University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK, discusses the potential of cellular immunotherapy, including CAR T-cell therapy, for the treatment of patients with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) and comments on whether she believes curing this disease may be possible in the foreseeable future. This interview took place at the EBMT-EHA 8th European CAR T-cell Meeting, held in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.
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Transcript
I do think cellular immunotherapy is the most promising approach for patients with T-ALL. Despite a lot of research into new treatments for T-ALL in recent decades, we’ve really seen no new targeted therapies emerging. And I think that’s in part because T-ALL is an extremely genetically heterogeneous disease, and so I think it would be difficult with a kind of targeted molecular drug to reach a large number of patients with T-ALL...
I do think cellular immunotherapy is the most promising approach for patients with T-ALL. Despite a lot of research into new treatments for T-ALL in recent decades, we’ve really seen no new targeted therapies emerging. And I think that’s in part because T-ALL is an extremely genetically heterogeneous disease, and so I think it would be difficult with a kind of targeted molecular drug to reach a large number of patients with T-ALL. In T-ALL, I think an approach that is not reliant on the sort of genetic mechanisms of T-ALL, such as targeting a surface marker, is going to reach more patients than a more molecularly targeted therapy.
I think we are not far off achieving a cure for patients with T-ALL. If you look at what’s happened with B-ALL and CAR T-cell therapy in the last sort of 10 years, practice has changed significantly in that time. And we now have got patients with relapsed and refractory ALL that are cured of their leukemia by CAR T-cells. And I think the emerging data with CD7 CAR is showing that these lymphoblasts are highly susceptible to CAR T-cell therapy. And I think if we can overcome some of the challenges that remain in targeting a T-cell cancer, then we can certainly see the same durable remissions with CAR T-cell therapy for T-ALL. So we’re very excited that it’s eminently possible and can be achieved in a relatively short time frame.
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