CAR-T therapy to target CD19 on malignant B cells is in the limelight owing to its high therapeutic efficacy. Many advanced researchs are accelerating worldwide to clarify the characteristics of CAR-T cells, such as the mechanism of cytotoxic activity, the optimization of the CAR signal domain structure, and the qualitative effects on T cell populations.
Tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah^®) is consists of CAR-T cells cultured and proliferated after ex vivo transduction with the CAR encoding gene using a lentiviral vector to patient's own T cells collected from blood. In recent years, CD19 CAR-T therapy has been developed as a treatment option for r/rDLBCL, particulary tisagenlecleucel is approved in Japan.
CAR-T therapy is an effective therapy for malignant lymphoma. However, there are still some challenges we have to conquer, which include the relapse and the management of adverse reaction such as cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS).
This presentation is to share basic knowledge on the development of CAR-T therapy based on the development experience of tisagenlecleucel for DLBCL and frontline scientific information obtained to date. Thus, we would like to discuss the current status and problems of CAR-T therapy in malignant lymphoma and the future direction of development.