Dr. Ramakrishnan on Benefit of CAR T-Cell Therapy in MCL

Praveen Ramakrishnan, MD, assistant professor, Department of Internal Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center, discusses the benefit of CAR T-cell therapy in patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL).

At the 2019 ASH Annual Meeting, Michael Wang, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, presented the results of the phase II ZUMA-2 trial. In the trial, investigators evaluated KTE-X19, an anti-CD19 CAR T-cell therapy, in patients with relapsed/refractory MCL who received 1 to 5 prior therapies. The 12-month PFS and OS rates were 61% (95% CI, 45%-74%) and 83% (95% CI, 71%-91%), respectively.

The results are very promising and demonstrate the viability of CAR T-cell therapy in a difficult-to-treat patient population, concludes Ramakrishnan.