News

A much-anticipated session on the second day of the 59th Annual Meeting and Exposition of the American Society of Hematology provided long-term updates on trials evaluating 2 chimeric antigen receptor-T (CAR T) treatments: tisagenlecleucel or CTL019 (Kymriah) for the treatment of adult relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta) evaluated in patients with refractory aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

The high rates of cerebral edema seen with JCAR015 in the phase II ROCKET trial were attributed to early and rapid chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-modified T-cell expansion and a rise in interleukin-15 levels, a finding that could help inform future CAR T-cell usage.