This new study highlights safety and efficacy of Anti-CD30 CAR T-Cell therapy in high-risk lymphoma patients
A team comprised mainly of faculty from the Division of Hematology and UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center published a groundbreaking phase 1 study in The Lancet Haematology. The study demonstrates the safety and promising activity of anti-CD30 CAR T cells as consolidation therapy after autologous haematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (HSCT) in patients with high-risk CD30+ lymphoma, primarily Hodgkin lymphoma.
Their study offers significant hope for patients with relapsed high risk Hodgkin lymphoma, demonstrating that anti-CD30 CAR T-cell therapy can be safely administered as a consolidation treatment following autologous haematopoietic stem-cell transplantation. The therapy showed promising preliminary activity with manageable side effects and no treatment-related deaths, suggesting a potential new avenue for reducing relapse rates and improving long-term outcomes in these patients
The study included 21 patients, 18 of whom received the CAR T-cell infusion after HSCT. The treatment was well-tolerated with no dose-limiting toxicities, and the highest dose of 2 × 10^8 CAR T cells per m^2 was established as the maximum tolerated dose.
The most common grade 3-4 adverse events were lymphopenia and leukopenia, observed in two patients each. No treatment-related deaths occurred. With a median follow-up of 48.2 months, the median progression-free survival for all treated patients was 32.3 months, showing promising activity. The study concludes that anti-CD30 CAR T-cell therapy given after autologous stem cell transplant is safe and suggests the need for larger studies to further validate these findings
Further large-scale studies are needed to confirm these encouraging results and potentially establish a new standard of care for high-risk lymphoma patients.
The esteemed team features; Natalie S. Grover MD, George Hucks MD, Marcie L. Riches MD, Anastasia Ivanova PhD, Dominic T Moore MPH, Thomas C Shea MD, Mary Beth Seegars MD, Paul M Armistead MD PhD, Kimberly A Kasow DO, Anne W. Beaven MD, Christopher Dittus DO, James M Coghill MD, Katarzyna J Jamieson MD, Benjamin G Vincent MD, William A Wood MD, Catherine Cheng CCPS, Julia Kaitlin Morrison PhD, John West PhD, Tammy Cavallo BS, Gianpietro Dotti MD, Jonathan S Serody MD, and Barbara Savoldo MD PhD.