Treatment options for classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL) have expanded to the use of multiple chemotherapy drugs that have increased 5-year survival rates to approximately 90%. However, 20-30% of treated patients will experience progression or relapse of the disease at some point after treatment [1].
Disease progression or relapse is often dealt with through the use of salvage chemotherapy along with autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT), although long-term outcomes are not promising. New treatments have emerged in the form of CD30-directed chimeric antigen receptor (CAR30) T-cell therapy, which may have a high response rate in patients with relapsed/refractory (r/r) cHL.
In this open-label, single-center pilot study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology for the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting, researchers investigated the safety and efficacy of CAR30 T-cell therapy with ASCT. A total of 6 patients with cHL or anaplastic lymphoma kinase-negative anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) were enrolled in the study.
No patients had received ASCT previously, and, at the time of enrollment, most patients had stable or progressive disease despite previous treatments. At the start of the study, all patients received an infusion of CD34+ cells followed by an infusion of CAR30 T-cells.
Ultimately, it was found that in the third month after infusion, 5 patients had a complete response, and 1 patient had a partial response. With a median follow-up of around 18 months, the median PFS and OS were not reached. However, sustained response to treatment was observed in all patients with stable or progressive disease. No patients experienced neurotoxic events or severe infection after treatment.
In conclusion, CAR T-cell therapy may be a promising treatment option to add to the treatment arsenal for r/r cHL. Limited toxicity with CAR T-cell therapy makes it a potential option for combination treatments, though more research is needed to determine how best to optimize treatment for r/r cHL patients [2].
Sources:
[1] Meier, J. A., Savoldo, B., & Grover, N. S. (2022). The emerging role of CAR T cell therapy in relapsed/refractory Hodgkin lymphoma. Journal of Personalized Medicine, 12(2), 197. https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm12020197
[2] Yang, X., Zhang, P., Cao, Y., Wang, J., Zhou, M., Li, C., Zhou, J., & Huang, L. (2022, June). Autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in tandem with anti-CD30 CAR T-cell infusion in relapsed/refractory CD30+ lymphoma [Poster session]. 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL. https://meetings.asco.org/abstracts-presentations/210374
