Dr. Costa on the Promising Role of CAR T-Cell Therapy in Multiple Myeloma

Luciano J. Costa, MD, PhD, an associate professor of medicine in the Blood and Marrow Transplantation and Cell Therapy Program at the University of Alabama’s Birmingham School of Medicine, discusses the promising role of CAR T-cell therapy in relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma.

As in other hematologic malignancies, such as acute lymphoblastic leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, CAR T-cell therapy has been shown to be a highly potent therapeutic modality among patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma, says Costa.

Moreover, most patients with myeloma who received investigational CAR T-cell therapy were refractory to proteasome inhibitors, immunomodulatory agents, and CD38-directed monoclonal antibodies, Costa explains.

Although responses tend to occur quickly and persist for several months, it does not seem likely at this point that patients with multiple myeloma will derive long-term responses with CAR T-cell therapy as has been observed in some patients with lymphoma and leukemia, Costa says.

However, patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma tend to derive responses that require little monitoring, suggesting this will be a well-tolerated treatment in the future, concludes Costa.