EBMT 2022 | Optimizing CAR-T therapy in LBCL

Well, that was at the peak of my presentation during one of the Satellite Symposia on Sunday, and there are actually many avenues for improvements. Some potential improvements are related to the design of the chimeric antigen receptor itself with a view to improve efficacy to induce long-lasting remissions in a higher fraction of patients, or with a view to mitigate the side effects and potentially simplify the hospital organization needed to care for these side effects.
Other avenues relate to the patient selection process, the referral process to the treating hospitals, and others relate to potential combinations of CAR-Ts with other agents that are being used to treat lymphoma. One has to think of CAR-Ts as being an important step in an otherwise quite complex therapeutic path, so again, selection and proper referral of the patients at the most appropriate time will be key to improved access to these treatments.
Obviously, it is of utmost importance that we improve the fraction, the proportion of patients, who do benefit from receiving CAR-Ts, and investigating the tumor biology, as well as the T-cell fitness characteristics, will help us to better delineate which patients can benefit off these innovative therapies and which could benefit off other choices.