LONDON -- Most patients with super-refractory, seropositive rheumatoid arthritis (RA) responded well to chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy in the first part of an ongoing phase I/II trial, a researcher reported here.
Of six patients treated in the study's phase I portion, all showed reductions in swollen and tender joint counts. Four saw important decreases in overall RA severity as measured with the 28-joint Disease Activity Score (DAS28), according to Fredrik Albach, MD, of Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin in Germany, and colleagues.
Three of those patients achieved clinical remission when followed for at least 36 weeks, he added, and autoantibody levels dropped markedly in all six.
Safety data were consistent with those seen in other studies of CAR T-cell therapy in rheumatologic diseases, Albach also told attendees at the European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology (EULAR) annual meeting.
Tremendously exciting results from those studies have been reported in the past few years, but almost all have involved diseases such as lupus and inflammatory immune myopathies that are primarily driven by B cells, the target for current CAR T-cell therapies.
