Dr. Shah on the Rationale for Tandem Receptor CAR T-Cell Therapy in Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma

Nirav N. Shah, MD, associate professor​, Medical College of Wisconsin, discusses the rationale to evaluate tandem receptor CAR T-cell therapy in non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).

A single-arm, open-label, phase 1 expansion trial (NCT03019055) evaluated the safety and feasibility of anti-CD20 and anti-CD19 CAR T-cell therapy in patients with relapsed/refractory CD19/CD20​-positive B-cell malignancies, Shah says.

Currently, the majority of available CAR T-cell therapies in B-cell malignancies target CD19, explains Shah. However, CD20 has been a mainstay target in NHL for many years. For example, rituximab (Rituxan), a CD20-directed monoclonal antibody, is a widely utilized therapy in B-cell NHL. As such, dual-targeting CAR T-cell therapies have the potential to engage the tumor at CD19 and CD20 and minimize the risk of antigen escape by CD19 downregulation. Antigen escape is a known mechanism of resistance to single-target CAR T-cell therapy, Shah concludes.