Dr. Brentjens Discusses Potential for CAR T-Cell Therapy in Solid Tumors

Renier Brentjens, MD, PhD, associate professor, chief, Cellular Therapeutics Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the potential for chimeric antigen receptor therapy (CAR) T-cell therapy in solid tumors.

The success of CD19-targeted CAR T-cell therapy has emboldened investigators to look at other targets on solid tumors—which could be the next big breakthrough, Brentjens says. If successful CAR T-cell therapy would live up to the hype that has surrounded it in the larger medical community.

Brentjens says that the field is no longer solely focused on CD19-directed CAR T-cell therapies in lymphoma and leukemia. Expanding to solid malignancies will be challenging, but doable, Brentjens adds.

Current FDA-approved CAR T-cell therapies include tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah) and axicabtagene ciloleucel (axi-cel; Yescarta), the latter of which targets CD19 in hematologic malignancies.