Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Research Highlight
  • Published:

Immunotherapy

CAR-modified T cells targeting CD19—curing the incurable

Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology volume 11, page 683 (2014)Cite this article

Subjects

Relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) is associated with an extremely poor prognosis and poses a considerable therapeutic challenge, especially for patients who do not achieve a second complete remission or who relapse after stem-cell transplantation. Engineered T-cell therapy is a new strategy for the treatment of this disease that has already demonstrated durable complete remissions in a small number of patients. One T-cell therapy approach uses chimeric antigen receptors (CAR). By infusing autologous T cells transduced with a CD19-targeting CAR (CTL019) lentiviral vector in 25 children and five adults with relapsed or refractory ALL, Stephan Grupp and coauthors reported a staggering 90% complete remission rate in 27 of these patients. Responses were seen in two patients who were refractory to the agent blinatumomab, an antibody that targets the CD19 antigen present on B cells.

Severe cytokine-release syndrome—a systemic inflammatory response caused by elevated levels of cytokines—was the main adverse effect. All patients had at least mild-to-moderate cytokine-release syndrome that required hospitalization, while eight patients developed severe cytokine-release syndrome requiring intensive care and some degree of respiratory support; these responses were managed effectively with the IL-6 blocking agent tocilizumab.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Maude, S. L. et al. Chimeric antigen receptor T cells for sustained remissions in leukemia. N. Engl. J. Med. 371, 1507–1517 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Lisa Hutchinson
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Hutchinson, L. CAR-modified T cells targeting CD19—curing the incurable. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 11, 683 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrclinonc.2014.187

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrclinonc.2014.187

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing