Steve M. Albelda, MD

Steve M. Albelda, MD, Wiliam M. Measey Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, discusses the successes and downfalls of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells in solid tumor research.

The FDA has approved various CAR T-cell agents to treat hematologic malignancies over the past few years and more continue to be developed and evaluated in clinical trials. However, the solid tumor field has not had any CAR T-cell agents receive regulatory approval.

Aldelda explains some of the ways that solid tumors are seeing momentum with CAR T cells including in melanomas and sarcomas, but notes that positive results are fairly limited. Still, the field is growing and there are a number of ongoing trials looking at CAR T cells in various types of cancers.

 The tumor that has had the most success with adoptive T-cell transfer has been melanoma. That's mostly been with the T cells that have been harvested from the tumors and expanded and then given back to the patients. This has been primarily done at the National Cancer Institute, but I know that [The University of Texas] MD Anderson is also doing this. There are also some companies that have been starting to try to develop that.

The success in CAR Ts in solid tumors has been very limited. There was also some success in sarcomas. But in general, I don't know of any complete responses. There's an occasional partial response and some stable disease, but it's nothing like what's been seen with the blood tumors. [There's lots of trials in many types of cancers] lung cancer, and mesothelioma, which are the 2 that I'm most familiar with. But head and neck [cancer] has quite an active scene as well as brain tumors, glioblastomas, colon cancer, prostate cancer. There are a number of ongoing trials.

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Steve M. Albelda, MD, discusses the successes and downfalls of chimeric antigen receptor T cells in solid tumor research.


Steve M. Albelda, MD | Authors

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