Frequently Asked Questions

With this therapy, the patient’s own immune cells have been modified to recognize and attack their cancer. CAR-T cell therapy provides a chance for durable remission in certain cancers where patients have very limited options of treatment. CAR-T cells are also referred to as ‘living drugs’ as they are cells that stay on in the patient’s body and maintain surveillance and kill any new tumor cells. This property enables long term response.

Autologous CAR-T cell therapy is approved in some countries for haematological malignancies (Lymphoma, Leukemia and Multiple Myeloma) for patients who have not responded or refractory to standard lines of treatment. There are many cell and gene therapies in development for use in hematological and solid (organ) tumors. At this time, CAR-T cell therapy has been successful in demonstrating effectiveness for blood cancers. Research and clinical trials are underway to test CAR-T cell therapy formats for other tumors.

Cancer cells proliferate in an uncontrolled manner. The treatment modalities such as chemotherapy or radiation targets proliferating cells non-specifically. Immunotherapy approaches including CAR-T cell therapy target very specific receptor(s) on the cancer cells which usually are not expressed by normal tissue types. This targeting is very precise. Also, since a person’s own immune cells are used to treat their cancer, this therapy is very personalised to each patient.

CAR-T cell therapy may be associated with toxicities such as cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and neurotoxicity. These side effects are sometimes due to an exaggerated effect or response. Over the past few years, due to better understanding of how these treatments work, the management of these toxicities has also improved. Since these side effects are sometimes fatal, CAR-T cell therapies must always be delivered by a trained medical professional, and at a hospital where these side effects, if they occur, can be managed early and under medical guidance.