CAR-T Meeting 2022 | The nurse’s role in CAR-T therapy

The nurses have many roles in the collection and administration and follow-up of CAR-T patients. So starting with the role of the nurse at receipt of referral, so acquiring important information about the patient, making sure that you’re familiar with the details of the referral letter, making sure that you introduce yourself to the patient and you then become that patient’s key worker. Many hospitals now have adopted roles of CAR-T clinical nurse specialists, so a specific nurse who is the named nurse for that patient, particularly during the outpatient activities that are associated with that treatment. There are also apheresis nurses involved in the collection of the product before it then goes off to manufacture. Again, that’s quite a specialist role, very similar to cell collection for stem cell transplantation but a dedicated suite of nurses that are involved in that particular aspect of care. Then we have our nurses on the ward who are looking after patients during their inpatient care, usually during the leukodepletion and infusion of cells and monitoring during that acute phase, after the cells have been infused, looking out for CRS and neurotoxicity. Then we have our nurses in the outpatient setting who are looking after the patient once they have been discharged from the hospital. Again, being involved in communication and information exchange with the patients and again, helping to identify any new side effects that might be arising at that stage. So nurses are involved with these patients at every single step of the treatment, right the way from referral through to discharge and beyond, particularly in those centers where some of the long-term follow-up clinics have been commenced.