Dr. Goy on Next Steps With CAR T-Cell Therapy in MCL

Andre Goy, MD, Physician in Chief Hackensack Meridian Health Oncology Care Transformation Service, Chairman & Chief Physician Officer - John Theurer Cancer Center, Lydia Pfund Chair for Lymphoma, Academic Chairman Oncology - Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine, Professor of Medicine – Georgetown University, Hackensack, NJ, discusses the next steps with CAR T-cell therapy in mantle cell lymphoma (MCL).

In July 2020, the FDA approved the CAR T-cell therapy brexucabtagene autoleucel (Tecartus) to treat patients with relapsed/refractory MCL. The regulatory decision was based on findings from the phase 2 ZUMA-2 trial, in which a single infusion of the CAR T-cell product elicited an 87% objective response rate and a 62% complete response (CR) rate in this patient population.

The next steps with brexucabtagene autoleucel, as well as CAR T-cell therapy overall, is to improve responses for patients who do not achieve a CR, says Goy. Although the field is developing a greater understanding of how to mitigate the toxicities associated with CAR T-cell therapy, improvements in outcomes for patients with MCL, an aggressive lymphoma subtype, are still needed, Goy explains. Moreover, the concept of heavily pretreated patients and T-cell fitness as a mechanism that limits T-cell amplification could shed light on future research efforts, Goy says. Evaluating CAR T-cell therapy in a larger population of high-risk patients could highlight the widespread effect of this therapeutic modality in this setting, concludes Goy.