Novel combinations work well for many patients suffering from chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), but there is a subset of patients who have limited responses to novel agents such as ibrutinib and rituximab. A better option for treatment may be CAR-T cell therapy. This treatment has the potential to treat patients with refractory CLL as well as those in earlier lines of therapy. Increasing evidence has shown that CAR T-cell therapy could be favored over existing therapies due to its short treatment duration and high rates of measurable residual disease (MRD) negativity. Furthermore, CAR-T cells resulted in more tolerable toxicities than novel combinations. There is increasing optimism that CAR-T will be integrated into the CLL treatment landscape.

In this podcast, Saar Gill, MD, PhD, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, chairs a debate with Tanya Siddiqi, MD, City of Hope, Duarte, CA, and Jordan Gauthier, MD, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre, Seattle, WA, in a discussion on CAR-T cell therapy in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), in the era of venetoclax, ibrutinib, rituximab, and novel combinations.