CAR-T therapy shown to improve symptoms of autoimmune diseases
12 Dec 2023
Cell TherapyImmunotherapyClinical ResultClinical Study
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Source: PMLiVE
Results from a study led by the University Hospital Erlangen in Germany have revealed that CAR-T therapy significantly improved the symptoms of autoimmune diseases or made them go away entirely.
First conducted in 2021, previous findings from five patients with systematic lupus erythematosus (SLE) showed promising results after they all went into remission.
Affecting around 10% of the global population, autoimmune diseases occur when the body’s natural defence system mistakenly attacks normal cells.
Researchers tested whether CD19 CAR-T cells achieved a deeper reset of B cells, which trigger autoimmune diseases, eradicate autoimmunity and achieve lasting drug-free remission in autoantibody-dependent AID.
The study enrolled a further eight patients living with SLE, four with systemic sclerosis and three with inflammatory myositis (IIM), who were no longer responding to multiple standard treatments.
Within a week of receiving CAR-T infusions, researchers found that the patients’ B cells were eliminated from the blood and then reoccurred in most patients within a few months.
Additionally, all 15 participating patients were able to stop taking the immune-suppressive drugs to reduce the symptoms of their disease and all three IIM patients went into remission after three months, substantially reducing the activity of their disease.
Overall, the therapy was well tolerated with no treatment-related adverse events reported, with only ten cases of mild cytokine-release syndrome, which is an inflammatory side effect of CAR-T therapy, as well as single cases of experienced moderate cytokine-release syndrome and vertigo.
The study’s lead author, Dr Fabian Müller, managing director, Bavarian Cancer Research InstituteCancer Research Institute and the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, said: “We have opened up an entirely new route of possibly treating several more diseases.
“We are hopeful that this is at least as good as autologous bone marrow transplant with substantially fewer side effects, but the data is preliminary, and we need to do follow-up studies to confirm these results.”
Researchers have said that further research is required, with a larger group of patients, to determine whether the CAR-T therapy will have long-term benefits for patients living with chronic autoimmune diseases.
Additional clinical trials are currently underway to further test CAR-T cell therapy in patients living with several other autoimmune disorders.
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