Linking Body Composition and Nutritional Status with CAR T-cell Efficacy

Obesity and its attendant pathophysiological alterations have long been implicated in promoting cancer development and in the modulation of antitumor immunologic responses, but little is known about their impact on outcomes after cellular immunotherapy. In this issue, Rejeski and colleagues report that intrinsic host factors including body composition and nutritional status may predict response after chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy in patients with relapsed lymphomas. These data highlight the clinical relevance of these factors on treatment outcomes and will hopefully motivate interventional studies of prehabilitation and nutritional optimization in these patients. See related article by Rejeski et al., p. 707 (1).