Dr. Raje Discusses the Tolerability of bb2121 in Myeloma

Noopur Raje, MD, director, Center for Multiple Myeloma, Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, discusses the tolerability of bb2121 as a treatment for patients with multiple myeloma.

The anti-BCMA chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy bb2121 is currently being evaluated in patients with heavily pretreated relapsed/refractory myeloma in the multicenter phase I CRB-401 study. Raje says that while patients are being infused, they should remain in the hospital and be monitored for the common toxicities that have been seen with CAR T-cell therapy. The 2 big toxicities that have been noted with cellular therapy are neurotoxicity and cytokine release syndrome (CRS).

Raje says that although there was a CRS signal in patients treated with bb2121, it was fairly low and easily manageable. Additionally, there was a low signal of neurotoxicity. One patient did experience grade 4 neurotoxicity, but they recovered completely. Raje says that one of the key considerations when deciding to test CAR T-cell therapy in myeloma was age, as the median age of patients with myeloma is generally higher than that of acute lymphoblastic leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, where CAR T-cells were first tested and approved.