A clinical trial shows the results of five years of CAR T-cell therapy for non-Hodgkin lymphomas

A large number of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) patients in a clinical trial initiated by Penn Medicine are still receiving relief five years after receiving the Kymriah cealla cell antigen receptor (CAR) receptor, research at the Abramson Penn Cancer Center reported today. in the New England Journal of Medicine. The findings represent the longest-running, published follow-up data for CAR T cell therapies approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of recurrent or refractory large B-cell lymphomas.

Among 24 patients with disseminated large-cell B-lymphoma (DLBCL), the most common form of NHL, who received treatment after their cancers recovered after routine treatment, 46 percent achieved complete remission and achieved 31 percent. percent survival without improvement at five. year. Among 14 patients with recurrent or refractory follicular lymphoma, the second most common form of the disease, 71 percent achieved complete relief and 43 percent achieved survival without improvement at five years.

“We found that the majority of patients receiving year-long relief stay in compensation five years after being irrigated with CAR T cells. This is very interesting and demonstrates the sustainability of this approach, “said lead author Elise A. Chong, MD, assistant professor of Medicine in the department of Hematology – Oncology at Penn ‘s Perelman School of Medicine. “Patients who do not respond to chemotherapy have another option that may offer them permanent discounts.”

Co-authors of this research include senior author Stephen J. Schuster, MD, Professor Robert and Margarita Louis-Dreyfus in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia and Clinical Care and Lymphoma Research at Perelman Penn School of Medicine and director the Lymphoma Program at Abramson Cancer Center, and Marco Ruella, MD,, assistant professor of Hematology-Oncology at Perelman School of Medicine and scientific director of the Lymphoma Program.

The team also examined the long-term stability of CAR T cells, and found that 50 percent of patients who suffered and stayed after transfusion had no visible levels of the CAR19 transgene first year, while only one of the 18 patients had recurrence of lymphoma within a year after the ingestion of the transgene. The findings suggest that loss of CAR T cell presence may not be a frequent approach to treatment.

The results of the study follow a study from the same clinical trial published in NEJM in 2017 by Schuster, among other researchers, which included patient results collected at 28 months. The results of a global CAR T cell test in lymphoma patients, supported by Novartis and partially controlled by Penn, were also published in NEJM, which led to FDA approval for Kymriah for the treatment of B-cell lymphoma refractory or refractory. after two or more lines of systemic therapy, including DLBCL, high-grade B-cell lymphoma, and DLBCL arising from follicular lymphoma, in 2018. Kymriah is a registered trademark of Novartis.

Large diffuse B-cell lymphoma accounts for approximately 30 percent of all NHLs, and an estimated 27,000 newborns with DLBCL are in the U.S. each year. Approximately 6,500 of these patients have relapsed or recurrence disease after two or more treatments and may be eligible for approved CAR T cell treatments.