Children and young adults with B-NHL in whom the disease has recurred or is unresponsive to treatment have a poor prognosis and limited treatment options. Therefore, an international study looked at whether tisagenlecleucel could be a safe and effective treatment for these patients.
Tisagenlecleucel
Tisagenlecleucel is a form of immunotherapy with CAR T-cells, or ‘CAR T-cell therapy’, directed against the protein CD19. This involves altering the patient's own T-cells so that they can recognize CD19. CD19 is present on the surface of leukemia and lymphoma cells of the B-cell type. This alteration enables the T cells to move toward the leukemia and lymphoma cells and attack them.
In this study, 28 children and young adults with B-NHL received tisagenlecleucel. All had received one or more other treatments after which the disease had returned or failed to respond.
Encouraging results
Nine of the 28 children (32%) showed a response to treatment. In two of them no signs of the disease were visible anymore (complete response), in the other seven the disease disappeared partially. In children with large cell B-cell lymphoma (LBCL), a response was seen more often (46%) than in children with Burkitt lymphoma (20%). At an average of 2.5 months after treatment, disease progression was seen again. The average survival (OS) was 10.4 months. Side effects of tisagenlecleucel were similar to what had previously been seen in adults.
These results are encouraging, according to the researchers. However, further research is needed to determine whether tisagenlecleucel can have a place in the treatment of these forms of B-NHL.
The scientific publication can be found here:
Minard-Colin V, Buechner J, Locatelli F, et al. S255: Efficacy and safety of tisagenlecleucel in pediatric and young adult patients (pts) with relapsed or refractrory (R/R) mature B-cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL): The phase II BIANCA study. HemaSphere 6():p 156-157, June 2022.