Two new experimental protocols for front-line CAR-Ts are starting at the Humanitas Hospital in Milan, an innovative therapy based on the genetic engineering of patients’ white blood cells to make them more effective in recognizing and defeating tumor cells. One protocol is for myelomas and one for large B cell lymphomas. A result that reminds us of the importance of research: thanks to the innovative therapies developed in recent years, 70% of people with blood cancers, such as lymphomas, myelomas and leukemia, today has new hopes for a cure.
After having given new hope to thousands of patients with advanced-stage blood cancers in whom other therapeutic options have failed, CAR-Ts are now progressively moving towards the first lines of treatment. This is the case of the two new experimental protocols. “This is an important step forward in the search for increasingly effective therapies – states Armando Santoro, director of the Humanitas Cancer Center -. In the case of multiple myeloma, the experimental therapy with anti-BMCA CAR-T has given encouraging results in studies with patients in a very advanced stage, this is why we are hopeful about the benefit of their more timely use. In the case of large B-cell lymphoma, the experimental protocol could open the way to an exclusively immunotherapy therapeutic path, especially for patients most at risk These innovations demonstrate the great value of research: there is no blood tumor that has not seen a substantial improvement from new therapies. Immunotherapy, from CAR-T to monoclonal antibodies up to the latest frontier of bi-specific antibodies, had a substantial impact.”
In the case of myeloma, explains Stefania Bramanti, head of the Autologous Transplant, CAR-T and Apheresis Section of Humanitas, “the study will evaluate in particular the effectiveness of anti-BMCA CAR-T in patients with a recent diagnosis of multiple myeloma and in partial remission following a bone marrow transplant”. Aggressive large B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, however, is already treatable in the second line with anti-CD19 CAR-Ts. In Humanitas, states Bamanti, “however, this new experimental protocol is also available which will evaluate the effectiveness of these CAR-Ts directly as a first-line treatment, instead of chemotherapy. If the results confirm it, this approach will allow us to imagine in the future a cure for these lymphomas with immunotherapy alone.”
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