What are the potential benefits of CAR T-cell therapy for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma?

What are the potential benefits of CAR T-cell therapy for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma? Can CAR T-cell therapy cure diffuse large B-cell lymphoma?

The last five years has been very rewarding in the large B-cell lymphoma space, with so many different approaches to treat this disease and most of these being non chemotherapy. So all the approvals are immunotherapy or targeted drug based approaches outside of CAR T-cells.

But CAR T-cells have been the biggest revolution in this disease because the one advantage for this treatment is a one time and done treatment. And if this treatment works, this is the one treatment in the relapse setting that we can say is associated with a potential cure.

So we have been kind of hesitant to use the word cure in the relapse setting for large cell lymphoma, especially in the early days of CAR-T. But now with longer follow up of these pivotal trials, we are seeing that 30 to 40% of patients are likely cured with this modality of treatment. And we can't say that with any other modality of treatment.

And patients are usually sick and they don't feel well when the lymphoma comes back. And with CAR T-cells, their quality of life also significantly improves if it controls the disease. The word cure is, is definitely a reality, right now in the second and third line setting for large cell lymphoma.

And that's the whole idea of using these treatments even more upfront for the most needy patients who we don't think are going to get a curative, response from the traditional treatments.