Dr. Wang on CAR T-Cell Therapy Resistance in MCL

Michael Wang, MD, a professor in the Department of Lymphoma and Myeloma at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses CAR T-cell therapy and triple-resistance in mantle cell lymphoma (MCL).

No single treatment can cure every patient, says Wang. Having treatment options in non-Hodgkin lymphoma is necessary, but resistance to these treatments continues to pose a challenge.

Therapies such as rituximab (Rituxan), ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and venetoclax (Venclexta) saw some success in this space, but long-term remission responses were not durable and patients eventually developed resistance to both modalities, Wang says.

The introduction of CAR T-cell therapy as a third treatment saw long-term remission in about 30% to 40% of patients, but a majority developed triple-resistance to chemotherapy, targeted therapy, and eventually, CAR T-cell therapy, he explains.

Personalized medicine may be the answer as it will expose driving resistance mechanisms in individual patients, Wang concludes.