Dr Rojek on Improving CAR T-Cell Therapies in Lymphoma

“A lot of our translational efforts, both here at UChicago as well as nationally, have focused on [taking] those lessons [that we’ve learned and turning them into CAR T cells that persist longer and hopefully lead to more durable remissions for more patients, both in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and refractory disease, as well as follicular lymphoma and other histologies.”

Alexandra Rojek, MD, a hematologist/oncologist and instructor of medicine in the Biological Sciences Division at the University of Chicago (UChicago) Medicine, discussed ongoing research aimed at improving CAR T-cell therapies for the treatment of patients with lymphomas.

CAR T-cell therapy has revolutionized the care of patients with lymphomas of multiple histologies, Rojek began. Investigators have learned from earlier studies and studies with long-term follow-up that patients who experience extended persistence of CAR T-cell therapies can also achieve long-term remissions, she continued. However, this is not always the case, and the question of how long CAR T cells should persist is an open one without a clear biologic answer, she noted.

There are many translational research efforts both at UChicago and nationally focused on taking the lessons that have been learned with current CAR T-cell therapies and using them to understand the effect that persistence can have on durable remissions, Rojek explained. The aim of these studies is to increase the rate of durable remissions in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, refractory disease, follicular lymphoma, and other lymphoma histologies, she concluded.

For example, Rojek was a coauthor on a multicenter analysis that examined CAR T-cell therapy for the treatment of patients with secondary nervous system lymphoma. She was also the first author of a study that aimed to characterize metabolic tumor volume as a prognostic marker for treatment with CAR T-cell therapy in patients with aggressive large B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma.