Manali Kamdar, MD, on Acclimating to Routine CAR T Practice in the Field

“I think experience is very important. I will say that academic centers, where I practice, we have a well-oiled machinery in terms of resources, staffing, in order to successfully take patients through CAR-T cell therapy, so the wariness around toxicities, finagling logistics, especially payer authorization, and all of that, I think we have ways to circumvent the delays. So, it's certainly very important to build around this experience with regards to the uptake of CAR T-cell therapy. In the community setting, I feel liso-cel is an excellent choice because it's a very manageable CAR-T cell therapy, wherein we feel comfortable after giving the initial CAR T cell therapy and initial observation period to transfer patients back to the community physicians, because the majority of patients don't experience cell therapy related toxicities.”

Lisocabtagene maraleucel (liso-cel), approved under the name Breyanzi for patients with refractory/relapsed (r/r) large B-cell lymphoma (LBCL), has continued to demonstrate deep responses and superiority over standard of care.

Updated, 3-year data from TRANSFORM were presented at the 2024 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, held May 31 to June 4, in Chicago, Illinois, by Manali Kamdar, MD, associate professor of medicine – hematology, University of Colorado School of Medicine - Anschutz Medical Campus, and UCHealth Blood Disorders and Cell Therapies Center. CGTLive® spoke with Kamdar to learn more about her experience administering chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies in an academic center. She stressed that as the field gets more used to CAR T-cell therapies, their administration has become more routine and streamlined for patients, with better education and community access.

Click here to view more coverage from the 2024 ASCO meeting.

REFERENCE

Kamdar MK, Solomon SR, Arnason J, et al. Lisocabtagene maraleucel (liso-cel) vs standard of care (SOC) with salvage chemotherapy (CT) followed by autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) as second-line (2L) treatment in patients (pt) with R/R large B-cell lymphoma (LBCL): 3-year follow-up (FU) from the randomized, phase 3 TRANSFORM study. Presented at: 2024 (ASCO) Annual Meeting; May 31 - June 4; Chicago, Illinois. Abstract #7013