CAR-T Meeting 2024 | The evolving role of nurses in the field of CAR-T

The role in caring for patients with CAR-T cell therapy is evolving because also the disease indications surrounding CAR-T cell therapy are evolving. So that means more patients have access to CAR-T cell therapies with several diseases. And, well, of course, also more elderly patients have access to this treatment, for example, patients not only with lymphomas or acute leukemia but also patients with multiple myeloma who are mostly elderly patients. And what also does have an impact on our role of nursing is that patients, especially in the future with solid tumors and several autoimmune diseases, will have the possibility for treatment with CAR-T cell therapy. 

The role in CAR T-cell therapies is evolving and that means, one of the important points we do have there is that the whole treatment team is very important. So the collaboration between the many disciplines who are involved, like intensive care nurses, neurology department. So to have there a very good collaboration, that’s extremely important, but also a challenge. Then due to also the involvement of nurses nowadays, it’s very important that new nurses are well-informed and educated on CAR T-cell therapies. And that was one of the highlights also during the CAR T-cell meeting in Valencia, was that we should have a discussion about ethical issues surrounding the treatment of CAR T-cell patients. So that means in the clinics, we should have, together with the medical treatment team, we should have discussions about ethical issues.

Well, what does it mean for the future? When we have a look at the numbers worldwide, patients will have the possibility to be treated with CAR T-cell therapies and we should think about the impact on outpatient clinics. So will the treatment go from inpatient to outpatient, or do we have to expand the inpatient clinics for the upcoming treatment of, for example, patients with autoimmune diseases. Do we have to think about the outreach treatment teams? So, there will be also a huge impact on nurses who are caring for people with CAR T-cell therapies.

And finally, as the Haematology Nurses and Healthcare Professionals Group, it will be another challenge for us to educate nurses as well as possible in this very exciting and expanding field of hematology. So, as president of the Hematology Nurses and Healthcare Professionals Group, HNHCP, we are also trying to hold with the access to therapies and well, our main role is to educate nurses globally and also all the healthcare professionals like physiotherapists, dietitians, and other nursing roles to educate them as well as possible in this very expanding field. That’s why we will update also, next year, our CAR T-cell learning program- that means our textbook, which will be available in English, German, Italian, Spanish, and French.