A revolutionary treatment for cancers may also be able to treat and reset the immune system to provide long-term remission or possibly even cure certain autoimmune diseases.
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has offered a novel approach to treating hematologic cancers since 2017, but there are early signs that these cellular immunotherapies could be repurposed for B-cell mediated autoimmune diseases.
In September of last year, researchers in Germany reported that five patients with refractory systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) treated with CAR T-cell therapy all achieved drug-free remission. At the time of publication, no patients had relapsed for up to 17 months after treatment. The authors described seroconversion of antinuclear antibodies in two patients with the longest follow-up, "indicating that abrogation of autoimmune B-cell clones may lead to a more widespread correction of autoimmunity," the researchers write.
In another case study published in June, researchers used CD-19 targeted CAR-T cells to treat a 41-year-old man with refractory antisynthetase syndrome with progressive myositis and interstitial lung disease. Six months after treatment, there were no signs of myositis on MRI and a chest CT scan showed full regression of alveolitis.
Dr Max Konig
Since then, two biotechnology companies — Cabaletta Bio in Philadelphia and Kyverna Therapeutics
