Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cell Therapy (CAR-T) for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) and Multiple Myeloma (MM)

Multiple myeloma is the second most common hematologic malignancy.Worldwide, approximately 160 000 people are diagnosed with MMevery year. Multiple myeloma is not curable with current standardtreatments and almost all patients will die of their disease. ALL is themost common pediatric cancer and approximately 60 000 children andadults are diagnosed with ALL worldwide every year. It is estimatedthat 15 000 to 20 000 people die of ALL worldwide every year. Recentadvances in immunotherapeutic approaches for cancer have resultedin the development of very effective immunotherapies includingengineered T cells expressing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) designedto bypass cancer immune evasion. US Food and Drug Administration(FDA) recently approved tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah) a CD19 CAR T celltherapy for treatment of relapsed refractory B cell ALL for patients up toage 25. Several CAR-T cell trials are currently enrolling patients with MMwith very promising preliminary results. Here, I review the advances andchallenges of CAR T cell therapy for ALL and MM.

Keywords:

Chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy , CAR-T cell therapy , Acute lymphoblastic leukemia , Multiple myeloma