A recent study looking at a CAR T-cell therapy (called CTX130) for kidney cancer (renal cell carcinoma) was found to be safe snd was shown to have early signs of clinical activity in patients.

This was an early phase 1 study with 13 patients. One patient had a complete response to treatment, and the disease was stable in 69% of patients. CAR T-cell therapy controlled the disease in three quarters of the patients. The complete response to treatment occurred around 3 months of treatment and was maintained for 18 months. At 4 months, 4 patients had stable disease.

CAT T-cell therapy was well tolerated, although half of the patients had mild-moderate cytokine release syndrome (CRS) when your immune system responds aggressively. This was related to the CAR T-cell therapy in 3 patients. Three patients had serious infections, all of which were unrelated to treatment. There was 1 death from pneumonia and one patient had life-threatening shortness of breath, which was not related to treatment.

“This first-in-human clinical trial exploring CD70 CAR T-cell therapy in clear cell renal cell carcinoma showed a tolerable safety profile with no unexpected on-target off-tumour toxicities and encouraging anti-tumour activity,” lead study author Sumanta K. Pal, MD, a professor in the Department of Medical Oncology and Therapeutics Research, and co-director of the Kidney Cancer Program at City of Hope in Duarte, California. “To our knowledge, this durable complete response is the first to be achieved with allogeneic CAR T-cell therapy in patients with relapsed/refractory solid tumours.”

Read more in OncLive here