Sequential CD19 and BCMA-specific CAR T-cell treatment elicits sustained remission of relapsed and/or refractory myeloma

The low rate of durable response against relapsed and/or refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) in recent studies indicates that chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CART) treatment is yet to be optimized. This study aims to investigate the safety and efficacy of sequential infusion of CD19-CART and B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA)-CARTs for RRMM with a similar 3 + 3 dose escalation combined with a toxicity sentinel design. We enrolled 10 patients, among whom 7 received autologous infusion and 3 received allogeneic infusion. The median follow-up time was 20 months. The most common grade 3/4 treatment-emergent toxicities were hematological toxicities. Cytokine-release syndrome (CRS) adverse reactions were grade 1/2 in 9 out of 10 subjects. No dose-limited toxicity (DLT) was observed for BCMA-CAR-positive T cells <= 5 x 10(7)/kg), while two patients with dose-levels of 5-6.5 x 10(7)/kg experienced DLTs. The overall response rate was 90% (five partial responses and four stringent complete responses). Three out of four patients with stringent complete responses to autologous CART had progression-free survival for over 2 years. The three patients with allogeneic CART experienced disease progression within 2 months. These results evidence the sequential infusion's preliminarily tolerability and efficacy in RRMM, and present a simple and safe design applicable for the establishment of multiple CART therapy.

Automated summary

This study demonstrates the safety and efficacy of sequential infusion of CD19-CART and BCMA-CART for RRMM, with a significant overall response rate and promising results in some patients.