Driving Out Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia With CAR T Cells

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is the most prevalent leukemia in the Western hemisphere. The recent availability of novel targeted therapies, namely Bruton's tyrosine kinase, phosphoinositide-3 kinase, and BCL-2 inhibitors, have revolutionized the treatment algorithm for CLL but have not yet resulted in cure. Advances in the field of immuno-oncology and T cell engineering brought chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy from the laboratory to the clinic for treatment of B cell lymphoid malignancies and has improved the disease response and survival outcomes of various types of relapsed and/or refractory B cell lymphomas. While acknowledging that there are no approved CAR T cell therapies for CLL at this time, in this comprehensive review we explore novel targets for CAR T cell therapy in CLL and highlight the promising results of CAR T cell trials reported to date. Furthermore, we shed light on future areas of development, including multitarget CAR T cell products for this disease.