Tanya Dorff, MD, Discusses Next Steps With CAR T-Cell Therapy in Prostate Cancer

At the 2022 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, Tanya Dorff, MD, an associate professor in the Department of Medical oncology and Therapeutics Research, and section chief of the Genitourinary Disease Program at City of Hope, spoke about data that have read out the recent regarding the use of CAR T-cell therapy as a potential treatment of for prostate cancer. Dorff highlighted emphasized the need importance for education regarding this treatment, as CAR T-cell therapy is used to treat hematologic malignancies, genitourinary oncologists are may not be as familiar with the toxicity profile and that may be observed mechanisms associated with CAR T-cell therapy as oncologists who treat hematologic malignancies. She also discussed recent ongoing trials assessing this treatment modality that are currently accruing patients or are underway with the use of CAR T cells.

Transcript:

We have a long way to go to get CAR T-cell therapy into practice for prostate cancer, but we’ve been excited that even within the first handful of patients treated on the various trials, we are seeing responses. At the 2022 ASCO Genitourinary Symposium (ASCO GU), a poster was presented for POSEIDA’s PSMA CAR T product by Susan F. Slovin, MD, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering,¹ showing this beautiful response in a patient and a fairly robust PSA [prostate specific antigen] response waterfall from that early experience with the CAR T-cell [study. Findings using] our PSCA-targeted CAR T from City of Hope that our scientists have developed and we produce here were also presented a ASCO GU showing, again, a robust response early on. However, the toxicity was considerable.² We’re just learning what the [adverse] effect [AE] profile will look like in [patients with] prostate cancer vs hematologic malignancies. A big part of our education focus was just to help familiarize solid tumor oncologists with things like cytokine release syndrome and macrophage activation and the ways these present and how to manage them. This is the long-term implementation to make sure the community is educated so these treatments can be widely accessed. Taking a step back, we’re still sorting out optimal dosing and whether we’re going to need adjunctive strategies or multiple doses to get a higher rate of nice, durable remissions with these therapies.

References

1. Slovin SF, Dorff TB, Falchook GS, et al. Phase 1 study of P-PSMA-101 CAR-T cells in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). J Clin Oncol. February 16, 2022;40(suppl 6):98. doi:10.1200/JCO.2022.40.6_suppl.098
2. Dorff TB, Blanchard S, Martirosyan H, et al. Phase 1 study of PSCA-targeted chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). J Clin Oncol. February 16, 2022;40(suppl 6):91. doi:10.1200/JCO.2022.40.6_suppl.091