Commenting on the study presented by ­Schuster et al at the 2015 ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition, Marcela Maus, MD, Director of the Cellular Immunity Program at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said: “These are amazing results. The study shows that [chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-engineered] CD19-directed T cells can have significant benefits in lymphoma. This opens the door for studying this therapy in these malignancies.”

She noted, “There were a large proportion of patients with durable responses, some of them out to a year.”

Dr. Maus also emphasized a notable difference between lymphomas and leukemias in the context of CAR-T therapy: “The magnitude of in vivo CAR-T cell expansion does not correlate with response [in lymphomas].” ■

Disclosure: Dr. Maus reported no potential conflicts of interest.