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SITC 2021 | CAR T-cell populations associated with treatment response in lymphoma

Zinaida Good, PhD, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, discusses the results of a study investigating chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell features associated with durable response in patients with lymphoma. In this study, the number of CAR T-cells and the specific CAR-T populations present in blood were analysed at peak expansion in 32 patients receiving axicabtagene ciloleucel (axi-cel) using high-dimensional single-cell proteomics analysis. Whilst the overall number of CAR T-cells was not found to correlate with treatment response, two subsets of CAR T-cells expressing CD57 and T-bet were associated with durable remission and conversely, one CAR T-cell subset expressing regulatory T-cell (Treg) features was associated with poor response and lower incidence of neurotoxicity. These findings can be used in the clinic to determine which patients may require additional therapy, and suggest that it may be beneficial to reduce populations of regulatory cells prior to infusion in patients with increased numbers of immunosuppressive cells. These observations also support tracking CD57-expressing T-bet-positive CAR T-cells in the blood to measure clonal expansion in patients. This interview took place during the 36th Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.