[Treatment outcomes of axicabtagene ciloleucel for relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma: a retrospective...

The advent of anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor-T cell therapy has dramatically changed the treatment strategy for relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (R/R DLBCL). Three products are recently available in Japan, but to the best of our knowledge, real-world data are only available for tisagenlecleucel. This study was a retrospective analysis of 27 patients who received axicabtagene ciloleucel (axi-cel) for R/R DLBCL at our institution. Cytokine release syndrome and immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome occurred in 24 (88.9%) and 8 patients (29.6%), respectively, and corticosteroids were used in 19 patients (70.4%). The median follow-up period was 8.1 months (range, 1.0-23.2), and the 6-month progression-free survival and overall survival rates were 80.2% (95% confidence interval [CI], 58.8-91.3) and 92.0% (95%CI, 71.6-97.9), respectively. Although our study was limited by its small sample size and short follow-up period, it demonstrated that axi-cel was highly effective and safe at our institution.