Dr. Shah on Cellular Therapies for Patients With Myeloma

Nina Shah, MD, associate professor, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the potential of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy in myeloma.

There are many existing cellular therapies, specifically engineered T-cell receptors that target NY-ESO-1. There are several clinical trials exploring this, one of which UCSF will be participating in. In addition, the updated results of CAR T-cell therapy, presented at the 2017 ASH Annual Meeting, showed response rates of 94% in those who were evaluable. Similarly, 9 out of 10 patients had minimal residual disease (MRD) negativity.

There is much excitement that patients who have been heavily pretreated, specifically a median of 7 lines of treatment, can reach MRD negativity. UCSF will soon open several respective trials to further explore the use of CAR T cells in myeloma.