SOHO 2025 | The potential value of early integration of CAR-T in ALL
Bijal Shah, MD, Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, FL, comments on the potential value of early integration of CAR T-cell therapy in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), highlighting the need to move away from the traditional paradigm of prolonged chemoimmunotherapy. Dr Shah emphasizes the importance of compartmentalizing therapy into a shorter timeframe and leveraging highly effective therapies like CAR-T to improve outcomes and reduce treatment duration. This interview took place at the 13th Annual Meeting of the Society of Hematologic Oncology (SOHO 2025) in Houston, TX.
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Transcript
I do think that earlier integration of CAR T-cell therapy for ALL is where we need to be. We can’t stick with the same paradigm of two and a half to three years of chemoimmunotherapy. Most patients are not going to get through it and we’ve seen this on large cooperative group studies, where really only about a third of the patients make it through all of maintenance...
I do think that earlier integration of CAR T-cell therapy for ALL is where we need to be. We can’t stick with the same paradigm of two and a half to three years of chemoimmunotherapy. Most patients are not going to get through it and we’ve seen this on large cooperative group studies, where really only about a third of the patients make it through all of maintenance. People have lives, and I mentioned in my presentation here at this meeting, those disrupted life transitions, they’re a big deal. Taking someone who’s in their 20s out of their life for just the intensive chemoimmunotherapy portion for six to eight months, not even accounting for the maintenance that follows, that’s a lot. Not accounting for transplants, which are still needed in a high proportion of patients, it’s a lot. And so I think we have to step back from our current paradigm and just acknowledge, as good as it may be, that doesn’t make sense for the majority of the folks that we treat. We have to find a way to compartmentalize the therapy into a shorter timeframe. That’s number one. We obviously are in a position to do that now because we have really highly effective agents that may help get us to that finish plan, and CAR-T is specifically what I’m referring to here. We’re doing it now on trial. I heard MD Anderson opened their trial with Obecabtagene autoleucel yesterday. And so they’re going to have a frontline study where they’re also conslidating with CAR-T. We’ve got, I think, around 23 or so enrolled to our Brexucabtagene trial. Very exciting. And I hope I’ll be able to share the data with you guys soon.
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