STAT+: Was CAR-T therapy a bystander or driver of lymphoma? Researchers examine first published case
The case of an Australian cancer patient treated with CAR-T suggests one way the therapy could have become linked to a second malignancy.
SAN DIEGO — Researchers on Saturday presented an unusual case of a T cell lymphoma marked with a CAR, the key synthetic protein in CAR-T therapy, here at the American Society of Hematology annual meeting.
It is the first published case of the rare blood cancer that’s associated with a commercial CAR-T product, the Janssen/Legend Biotech drug Carvykti, or cilta-cel in this case. But researchers are still untangling how much — if it all — the therapy contributed to the development of the blood cancer.
CAR-T cells, white blood cells engineered with a synthetic protein that helps the cell track down and destroy cancer, have been one of oncology’s most important breakthroughs in the last decade. The therapy has provided thousands of patients with lasting remissions and even cures in some cases, but it’s also borne a theoretical risk that the genetic engineering needed to create the therapy could also unintentionally cause subsequent, second cancers down the road.
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