scholarly journals Safety profile of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell immunotherapies (CAR-T) in clinical practice

Author(s):  
Giulia Bonaldo ◽  
Nicola Montanaro ◽  
AlbertoVaccheri ◽  
Domenico Motola

Abstract Purpose Two chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapies have been approved in the United States (USA) in 2017 and Europe (EU) in 2018: axicabtagene ciloleucel and tisagenlecleucel. They contain the patient’s own T cells, which are extracted, genetically modified, and reinfused. Alongside the good efficacy results, the assessment of safety profile of these new therapies represents a great challenge. Our aim was to analyze the reports of the adverse drug reactions (ADR) after CAR-T administration as occurred in the real clinical setting. Methods We performed a retrospective observational study, collecting all the reports in EU (EudraVigilance, EV) and US (FAERS) databases of ADRs regarding axicabtagene ciloleucel and tisagenlecleucel. Both descriptive and statistical analyses were performed, the latter by using Reporting Odds Ratio (ROR). Results A total number of 1426 reports of suspected ADRs were retrieved in EudraVigilance and FAERS. Patients’ reported age reflected the age range for which the drugs are approved (18–64 years for axicabtagene ciloleucel and patients aged under 25 years for tisagenlecleucel). The most reported event was cytokine release syndrome (CRS), 185 events for tisagenlecleucel and 462 for axicabtagene ciloleucel in FAERS and 137 and 498, respectively, in EudraVigilance. A disproportionality was found comparing axicabtagene ciloleucel with tisagenlecleucel for the above-mentioned event: EV ROR 2.47, 95% CI 2.22–2.74, FAERS 1.89, 1.70–2.10. Conclusion CRS represents the major problem with the administration of CAR-T therapies. Our analysis has not revealed new ADRs; however, it supports the safety profile of CAR-T with new data from real clinical setting.

Blood ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 136 (Supplement 1) ◽  
pp. 35-36
Author(s):  
Ruimin Hong ◽  
Houli Zhao ◽  
Yiyun Wang ◽  
Yu Chen ◽  
Hongliu Cai ◽  
...  

Background: An excessive immune response during coronavirus disease (COVID-19) can induce cytokine release syndrome (CRS), which is associated with life-threatening complications and disease progression. Methods: This study was aimed to investigate the differences and similarities between CRS induced by COVID-19 and CAR-T therapy, then provide valuable experiences for early identification and controlling CRS progression in COVID-19. We retrospectively evaluated the clinical characteristics of severe CRS (sCRS, grade 3-4) induced by COVID-19 (40 patients) or chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy as a comparator (41 patients). Results: Grade 4 CRS was significantly more common in the COVID-19 group (15/40 [35.7%] vs. 5/41 [12.2%], P=0.008). CAR-T group had more more dramatic increase in cytokine than COVID-19 group (Figure1), including IL-2 (7.3pg/mL [IQR: 2.0-12.7] vs.1.7 [0.7-2.7], P<0.001), IL-6 (7120.6 pg/mL [1066.8-15 136.4] vs. 110.3 [41.7-728.1], P<0.001), IL-10 (174.5pg/mL [61.7, 434.6] vs. 10.1 [6.3-20.6], P<0.001) and IFN-γ (1308.5pg/mL [296.6, 3108.2] vs .35.0 [16.9-60.8], P<0.001). Interestingly, COVID-19 group had significantly higher levels for TNF-α (31.1 pg/ml [16.1-70.0] vs. 3.3 [1.8-9.6], P<0.001).The correlations between viral load/ tumor burden and various cytokine levels were shown in Figure 2. Lg viral loads were correlated with lg IL-6 (R2=0.101; P<0.001) and lg IL-10 (R2=0.105; P<0.001) .In CAR-T group, LDH was a common indicator related to tumor burden among patients with ALL, NHL, and MM. The lg LDH concentration was correlated with the lg serum concentration of IL-6 (R2=0.161; P=0.01). The independent risk factors for COVID-19-related sCRS were hypertension history (OR: 7.167, 95% CI: 2.345-21.903; P=0.001) and minimum platelets <100×109 /L during disease course (OR: 9.237, 95% CI: 2.544-33.546; P=0.001). Conclusion: Our study demonstrated that there were similar processes but different intensity of inflammatory responses of sCRS in COVID-19 and CAR-T group. The diagnose and management of COVID-19 related sCRS can learn lessons from treatment of sCRS induced by CAR-T therapy. Keywords: Cytokine release syndrome, COVID-19, Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy Figure 1 Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
He Huang ◽  
Yongxian Hu ◽  
Yali Zhou ◽  
Mingming Zhang ◽  
Houli Zhao ◽  
...  

Abstract Chimeric antigen receptor-T cell (CAR-T) therapy in T cell malignancies faces fratricide, T cell aplasia, and product contamination. Here, we successfully developed a universal anti-CD7 CAR-T product (RD13-01). RD13-01 contains a bbzg-CAR comprising an anti-CD7 single-chain variable fragment, a 4-1BB costimulatory domain, a CD3ζ signaling domain, the intracellular domain of the common γ chain, and a natural killer cell inhibitory molecule (E-cadherin). TRAC, CD7 and HLA-II were disrupted to avoid graft versus host disease (GvHD), fratricide and rejection. Bbzg-CAR-T exerted antitumor effects superior to those of conventional CAR-T, while exhibiting reduced cytokine production. Among 11 evaluable relapsed/refractory (r/r) patients, no dose-limited toxicity, GvHD, immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity or severe cytokine release syndrome (grade≥3) occurred. Nine (82%) showed objective response. For r/r leukemia and NHL, complete response rates were 75% and 33.3% respectively. Outstanding safety and efficacy of this universal CAR-T product was achieved in CD7+ T cell malignancies.


Author(s):  
Bill X. Wu ◽  
No-Joon Song ◽  
Brian P. Riesenberg ◽  
Zihai Li

Abstract The use of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell technology as a therapeutic strategy for the treatment blood-born human cancers has delivered outstanding clinical efficacy. However, this treatment modality can also be associated with serious adverse events in the form of cytokine release syndrome. While several avenues are being pursued to limit the off-target effects, it is critically important that any intervention strategy has minimal consequences on long term efficacy. A recent study published in Science Translational Medicine by Dr. Hudecek’s group proved that dasatinib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, can serve as an on/off switch for CD19-CAR-T cells in preclinical models by limiting toxicities while maintaining therapeutic efficacy. In this editorial, we discuss the recent strategies for generating safer CAR-T cells, and also important questions surrounding the use of dasatinib for emergency intervention of CAR-T cell mediated cytokine release syndrome.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 195-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Utkarsh H. Acharya ◽  
Tejaswini Dhawale ◽  
Seongseok Yun ◽  
Caron A. Jacobson ◽  
Julio C. Chavez ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 113-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cesar Clavijo Simbaqueba ◽  
Maria Patarroyo Aponte ◽  
Peter Kim ◽  
Anita Deswal ◽  
Nicolas L. Palaskas ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT In recent years, cancer treatment has evolved, and new therapies have been introduced with significant improvement in prognosis. The immunotherapies stand out owing to their efficacy and remission rate. Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy is a part of this new era of therapies. Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy is a form of adoptive cellular therapy that uses a genetically encoded CAR in modified human T cells to target specific tumor antigens in a nonconventional, non-major histocompatibility complex (MHC) protein presentation. Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy successfully identifies tumor antigens and through activation of T cells destroys tumoral cells. It has been found to efficiently induce remission in patients who have been previously treated for B-cell malignancies and have persistent disease. As the use of this novel therapy increases, its potential side effects also have become more evident, including major complications like cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS). Cytokine release syndrome is a major systemic inflammatory process as a result of massive cytokine production by the proliferating and activated CAR T cells in which multiple interleukins and immune cells contribute to the inflammatory response. Cytokine release syndrome has been associated with cardiovascular life-threatening complications including hypotension, shock, tachycardia, arrhythmias, left ventricular dysfunction, heart failure, and cardiovascular death. Arrhythmias, among its major complications, vary from asymptomatic prolonged corrected QT interval (QTc) to supraventricular tachycardia, atrial fibrillation, flutter, and ventricular arrhythmias like Torsade de pointes. This article focuses on the cardiovascular complications and arrhythmias associated with CRS and CAR T-cell therapy.


Blood ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 132 (Supplement 1) ◽  
pp. 5019-5019
Author(s):  
Kunming Qi ◽  
Hai Cheng ◽  
Jiang Cao ◽  
Wei Chen ◽  
Jianlin Qiao ◽  
...  

Abstract Chimeric Antigen Receptor T cell( CAR-T) is an effective treatment for refractory recurrent hematologic malignancies nowdays. However, CAR T cells can potentially damage normal tissues by specifically targeting a tumor-associated antigen that is also expressed on those tissues. Cytokine release syndrome (CRS), a systemic inflammatory response caused by cytokines, is the most common type of toxicity, including fever, hyoxemia, pain and so on. In our study, we found 6 cases abnormal coagulation function which was not very common complication after CAR-T infusion. 4 cases relapsed/refractory acute B lymphoblastic leukemia(B-ALL), including 2 female 53 and 45 years old, 2 male 20 and 6 years old. 1 case multiple myeloma(MM), female 65 years old and 1 case relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), male 17 years old. After conditioning chemotherapy with fludarabine and cyclophosphamide, CAR-T cells were infused into patients. In these cases, female 65 years old B-ALL patient had the most severe cytokine release reactions, multiple organ function damage, and abnormal coagulation function that prothrombin time (PT) and activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) were prolonged and reached a peak (Too long to detect) on the 14th day after CAR-T infusion, while fibrinogen (FIB) was reduce d (peak on the 14 day, 0.328g/L) and D-Dimer, fibrinogen degradation products (FDP) significantly increased (peak on the 12th day, 28.7ug/mL and more than 10mg/L respectively). After positive hemostasis and other treatments with amperenic acid, vitamin K1 and so on, the level of PT, APTT, FIB, etc were returned to normal on the 19thday. The other 5 patients went through the same process, only slightly. Patients with severe abnormal coagulation function were prone to bleed and even life-threatening, and giving active treatment, finally they all recovered. For the first time, we reported the abnormal coagulation function after CAR-T infusion in hematologic malignancies. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


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