CAR T shows rapid initial, more durable responses in myeloma
2 min read 08 June 2023
An international clinical trial involving many Peter Mac patients has shown that CAR T-cell therapy provides significant benefits compared to standard treatment of relapsed multiple myeloma.
This CARTITUDE-4 study compared Janssen’s “Cilta-cell” CAR T-cell therapy to standard therapies in patients whose myeloma had returned despite up to three earlier forms of treatment.
Peter Mac was the leading Australian recruitment site for this pivotal Phase III clinical trial which involved 81 hospitals globally - mostly in the US, Europe and Asia.
In all, 419 patents were enrolled and randomised to receive either CAR T-cell therapy or their next standard-of-care treatment.
Patients in the CAR T-cell therapy group were more likely to show an early and deep “complete response” - meaning their blood cancer became undetectable – at 73% compared to 22% for standard-of-care.
And, after one year, progression free survival in the CAR T-cell therapy group was 76% compared to 49% for standard of care.
These results have just been presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conference in the US, plus in corresponding paper in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Professor Simon Harrison, Director of the Centre of Excellence in Cellular Immunotherapy and a leading Haematologist in the Myeloma team at Peter Mac, led the trial in Australia.
“Not only was CAR T-cell therapy more likely to produce rapid and deep initial responses in patients, most of whom had heavily pre-treated myeloma, these responses were also usually more durable than those resulting from standard of care,” says Prof Harrison.
“CAR T-cell therapy represents a significant treatment advance for myeloma, a blood cancer which is still considered to be incurable, with these results even more impressive than those for the MSAC approved CAR T-cell therapies for B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and aggressive lymphoma.
“These results, following on from those from the CARTITUDE-1 study, will lead to a change the treatment paradigm for patients with myeloma.”
The NEJM paper is titled “Cilta-cel or Standard Care in Lenalidomide-Refractory Multiple Myeloma”.