ABOVE: Characteristics of T cells circulating in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia could distinguish those who responded to CAR T cell therapy.
WIKIMEDIA, VASHIDONSK
The paper
J.A. Fraietta et al., “Determinants of response and resistance to CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy of chronic lymphocytic leukemia,” Nat Med, 24:563–71, 2018.
Receiving injections of their own genetically engineered T cells helps up to 90 percent of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia recover. Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy also works for more than half of patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. In chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), however, only about a quarter of patients benefit from such treatment.
University of Pennsylvania microbioxhelp more CLL patients. Comparing blood samples from patients, the team found that CAR T cells proliferated exponentially in individuals who responded to the treatment, but not in patients who didn’t respond. Both unaltered and engineered T cells in responders had ...
