While the focus and promise of CAR T-cell therapies has long been on liquid tumors and hematologic malignancies, new trials under way at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center are expanding the applications of immunotherapy to include other diseases.
“We have a couple different CARs in development for things like MS, rheumatoid arthritis, even Sjögren’s syndrome and lupus,” says Brian Betts, MD, Vice Chair of Strategic Initiatives for Transplant and Cellular Therapy at Roswell Park. Early indications find that CAR T-cells “cause better eradication of the B cells responsible for autoreactivity.”
Another trial, for what is likely to be an armored CAR T-cell treatment, will be for DLL3, a cell that “secretes its own cytokine,” Dr. Betts says. “That helps the CAR T cell persist, hang around in the microenvironment longer and makes it able to kill better too.” This is being studied for patients with small-cell lung cancer as a possible way to help reduce their repeated exposure to chemotherapy.
