Recent Advances in CAR-T Cell Therapy for Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma

Adoptive cellular immunotherapy with anti CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell has changed the treatment landscape in relapsed/refractory B cell lymphomas. They have emerged as effective therapy in patients with multiple relapsed/refractory disease, capable of sustaining durable remissions. Two CAR-T cell products (axicabtagene ciloleucel and tisagenlecleucel) are currently approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration. A third anti CD19 CAR-T cell, lisocabtagene ciloleucel is currently being evaluated in large clinical trials and may also be United States Food and Drug Administration-approved soon. CAR-T cell-related toxicities, including infections, cytokine release syndrome, and neurotoxicity are potential complications of therapy. With increasing use of CAR-T cells, the mechanism of toxicities and mitigation strategies needs to be developed. Additionally, reasons for CAR-T cell failure and progression following this therapy needs to be further studied. We describe the recent developments in this field, with emphasis on the complications of therapy and factors contributing to toxicities, efficacy, and resistance. We also describe the ongoing research in this field and the newer CAR-T cell constructs that are being developed to counter the challenges that have been identified in this field.