Dr. Siddiqi on Rationale for the TRANSCEND CAR-T CLL 004 Trial in CLL/SLL

[AussieNeil]

Tanya Siddiqi, MD, director, Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Program, Toni Stephenson Lymphoma Center, associate clinical professor, Department of Hematology & Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation, and a hematologist/oncologist at City of Hope, discusses the rationale for the phase I/II TRANSCEND CLL 004 trial (NCT03331198) investigating the use of the CAR T-cell therapy lisocabtagene maraleucel (liso-cel; JCAR017) in patients with relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) or small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL).

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Results from the trial showed that 88% of patients responded to the therapy 30 days into the study. The overall response rate was 83%, which was maintained for 6 months. Moreover, 67% of patients had undetectable MRD by day 30. Further follow-up data are anticipated later this year.

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Neil

[SethB34]

I wasn’t aware that the positive response rate in Car-T-cell therapy was that high. I would’ve figured it would be lower since it’s a newer emerging treatment. This is good news..

[DriedSeaweed]

Do all CLL patients generally have high cd19 expression? Or do better candidates for the CAR-T treatment tend to have higher cd19?

[AussieNeil Administrator in reply to DriedSeaweed]

CD19 is a marker for B-lymphocytes. In fact a monoclonal CD19 drug was developed for CLL, but didn't work as well as hoped. I gather that it is other factors behind why CAR-T isn't always successful for CLL.

Neil