A novel variation on CAR-T therapy has shown promise in treating aggressive T cell blood cancers, researchers have reported.
The new therapy is a universal CAR-T therapy, which can use cells from any healthy donor.
The Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, USA, has announced “promising” results from a phase 1/2 clinical trial involving 28 patients with relapsed T cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia or T cell lymphoblastic lymphoma.
Most patients who received the full dose of the therapy achieved full remission, the researchers reported.
Of the patients, 13 received the full dose of 900 million CAR-T cells following lymphodepletion. Two patients died at an early stage in the study, but ten patients showed strong responses and eight achieved complete remission. Out of these, six remained in remission at least six months later.
Known as WU-CART-007, the donor T cells are gene edited to delete T cell receptors and remove another key antigen, to avoid the CAR-T cells attacking each other. The chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) is then produced in the donor cells, to target the CD7 protein on the surface of cancerous T cells.
The trial has been reported in Blood and the researchers say a large international study is now under way.
Researcher Professor Armin Ghobadi said: “These responses are remarkable because the patients in this trial had run out of options. They had very aggressive cancers return after several lines of therapy, including several who relapsed after an earlier stem cell transplant.”
Fellow researcher Professor John DiPersio said: “The trial demonstrated a high likelihood of response to the therapy and even remission. This CAR-T cell treatment shows promise in becoming a bridge-to-transplant therapy for patients who would otherwise not be eligible for stem cell transplantation, which is the only potentially curative treatment for these blood cancers.”
Source:
Ghobadi A, Aldoss I, Maude SL, Bhojwani D, Wayne AS, Bajel A, Dholaria B, Faramand RG, Mattison RJ, Rijneveld AW, Zwaan CM, Calkoen FG, Baruchel A, Boissel N, Rettig MP, Wood B, Jacobs K, Christ S, Irons H, Capoccia B, Masters D, Gonzalez J, Wu T, Del Rosario M, Hamil A, Bakkacha O, Muth J, Ramsey B, McNulty E, Baughman J, Cooper ML, Davidson-Moncada JK, DiPersio JF. (2025) “Phase 1/2 trial of anti-CD7 allogeneic WU-CART-007 in patients with relapsed/refractory T cell malignancies.” Blood, 30 May 2025, doi: 10.1182/blood.2025028387.
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