SITC 2021 | Current status of CAR T-cell therapy for liquid and solid tumors
Crystal Mackall, MD, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, comments on the success of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy in liquid and in solid tumors. In the past ten years, the development of CAR T-cell therapy has significantly improved patient outcomes, in particular for patients with B-cell malignancies including both leukemia and lymphoma. Whilst leukemia is considered as a liquid tumor, lymphoma can be characterized as both a liquid and a solid tumor. Prof. Mackall explains that CAR T-cell therapies for other solid tumors have not had the same success. Several ongoing studies are exploring strategies to improve the efficiency of CAR T-cells in solid tumors. This interview took place during the 36th Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
Transcript (edited for clarity)
CAR T-cells have, I think, by all accounts, outperform their expected activity, shall we say. Developing cell therapies for cancer is something that investigators have worked on for 50 years. And it wasn’t until about 2010 that we started to see signals, and the signals have been strongest and most consistent in using CAR T-cells for B-cell malignancies, which are generally considered liquid tumors...
CAR T-cells have, I think, by all accounts, outperform their expected activity, shall we say. Developing cell therapies for cancer is something that investigators have worked on for 50 years. And it wasn’t until about 2010 that we started to see signals, and the signals have been strongest and most consistent in using CAR T-cells for B-cell malignancies, which are generally considered liquid tumors. Leukemia is for sure. A lymphoma is kind of liquid and kind of solid. And CAR T-cells have been remarkably effective against both leukemia and lymphoma. And for patients for whom standard chemotherapy has not been curative, CAR T-cells have been able to lead to long-term durable disease control in about 40% of patients with lymphoma. So if you think of lymphoma as a solid tumor, which is arguable, there’s clear evidence that they can have activity in that class of tumors.
That said, when you try to use CAR T-cell so far, when investigators have tried against other solid tumors, the results have not been as promising. My group has been working very hard to overcome those barriers, and we’ve got some very exciting data that I’ll present tomorrow at SITC showing some very exciting results in a brain tumor.
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