Reprogramming patients’ immune cells to treat their cancer has become the front line of cancer therapy, with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy now approved by the FDA for several blood cancers. But translating this success to solid tumors remains a challenge. At the 2019 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, Gianpietro Dotti, MD, Cancer Cellular Immunotherapy Program, Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, discussed efforts to extend the application of CAR T-cell therapy to solid tumors.
The era of immunotherapy has opened new perspectives in renal-cell carcinoma (RCC), which is one of the tumors most highly infiltrated with CD T-cells and PD-1 expression, partially accounting for its sensitivity to immunotherapy.
A chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy that targets CD19 and CD22 molecules has demonstrated safety and efficacy, in patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic lymphoma, with response rates consistent with CAR T-cell therapies that target CD19 alone.
San Francisco, CA—The immunotherapy combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) provides durable clinical benefit in patients with previously treated DNA mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR)/microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H) metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC).
As the number of patients receiving immune checkpoint blockade grows, the combination of radiation and immunotherapy has become increasingly relevant, particularly in the palliative care setting, where radiation therapy is used to treat painful lesions or brain metastases.
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN)’s first guideline (version 1.2018) for the management of side effects from immunotherapy recognizes “a new spectrum of adverse events” in patients who are receiving immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy, said John A. Thompson, MD, Director, Phase I Clinical Trials Program, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, [ Read More ]
Orlando, FL—Enthusiasm for immunotherapy in the treatment of cancer must be balanced with a healthy respect for the power of T-cell activation. Autoimmunity is recognized as an effect of prolonged T-cell activation via PD-1/PD ligand 1 inhibition. Although immune-Ârelated adverse events are generally easily managed, they occasionally can be fatal [ Read More ]
Chicago, IL—Immunotherapy holds promise as second-line or third-line treatment of patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma, a rare cancer with increasing incidence. Early findings from the ongoing, phase 2 MAPS-2 clinical trial showed that immunotherapy slowed the growth of malignant pleural mesothelioma after relapse, reported lead investigator Arnaud Scherpereel, MD, PhD, [ Read More ]
Atlanta, GA—CD19-directed chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy continues to show excellent and durable responses in patients with lymphoma who have no other treatment options. Two studies presented at ASH 2017 provide encouraging news for 2 new drugs, including long-term follow-up of the pivotal ZUMA-1 study of the CAR T-cell [ Read More ]
Atlanta, GA—Although chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies directed against the CD19 protein garnered much attention at ASH 2017, CAR T-cells targeting B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA), a protein expressed nearly universally on multiple myeloma cells, were found to be remarkably effective in patients with heavily pretreated multiple myeloma. In the [ Read More ]
