Oncologists Favor CAR T-Cell Therapy for Early Relapsed Myeloma
Oncologists are increasingly favoring CAR T-cell therapy’s early-line use in relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma despite challenges like cost and access.
Combination antimyeloma regimens with or without high-dose chemotherapy, autologous stem cell transplantation, and maintenance therapy have demonstrated the ability to achieve responses in most patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma (MM).1-3 However, most patients will relapse, and effective treatment of relapsed/refractory MM (R/R MM) requires interventions that eliminate heterogenous clonal plasma cell populations that have evolved to increasingly resist treatment. One approach that has shown impressive outcomes in R/R MM is the use of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells that target B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA), a receptor involved in plasma cell differentiation and highly expressed in MM.4