Management of cytokine release syndrome related to CAR-T cell therapy

Abstract

Chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cell therapy is a novel cellular immunotherapy that is widely used to treat hematological malignancies, including acute leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma. Despite its remarkable clinical effects, this therapy has side effects that cannot be underestimated. Cytokine release syndrome (CRS) is one of the most clinically important and potentially life-threatening toxicities. This syndrome is a systemic immune storm that involves the mass cytokines releasing by activated immune cells. This phenomenon causes multisystem damages and sometimes even death. In this study, we reported the management of a patient with recurrent and refractory multiple myeloma and three patients with acute lymphocytic leukemia who suffered CRS during CAR-T treatment. The early application of tocilizumab, an anti-IL-6 receptor antibody, according to toxicity grading and clinical manifestation is recommended especially for patients who suffer continuous hyperpyrexia, hypotensive shock, acute respiratory failure, and whose CRS toxicities deteriorated rapidly. Moreover, low doses of dexamethasone (5–10 mg/day) were used for refractory CRS not responding to tocilizumab. The effective management of the toxicities associated with CRS will bring additional survival opportunities and improve the quality of life for patients with cancer.

Keywords

chimeric antigen receptor T cell / cytokine release syndrome / tocilizumab

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Compliance with ethics guidelines

Hongli Chen, Fangxia Wang, Pengyu Zhang, Yilin Zhang, Yinxia Chen, Xiaohu Fan, Xingmei Cao, Jie Liu, Yun Yang, Baiyan Wang, Bo Lei, Liufang Gu, Ju Bai, Lili Wei, Ruili Zhang, Qiuchuan Zhuang, Wanggang Zhang, Wanhong Zhao, and Aili He declare no competing interests. The clinical trials of LCAR-B38M therapy and CD19-CAR-T cells therapy were approved by the Ethics Committee of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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