CAR T Cell Therapy: A Game Changer in Cancer Treatment

Figure 2

Open clinical studies investigating the safety and efficiency of adoptive T cell therapy (ATC) in cancer registered in https://clinicaltrials.gov/ as of December 2015 (search terms: “intervention: T cells”, indication: “cancer”). More than 200 protocols are registered, and about 40% of these address the use of CAR T cells, of which 65% are studied in trials for hematological malignancies. The use of unmodified/minimally manipulated/nongene modified T cells (based on the endogenous T cell repertoire) isolated from PMBC and from tumor (TILs) constitutes a similar fraction (16% virus/antigen specific + 15% TIL + 10% DLI/minimally manipulated) to CAR T cells. TCR gene modified T cells make-up about 11% of the studies. The term armored T cells refers to the adoptive transfer of T cells that have been precoated ex vivo with bispecific antibodies targeting CD3 and tumor associated antigen, like CD19 [6].