In the first systematic study of its kind, researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center report comprehensive data on infectious complications of an emerging cancer immunotherapy strategy called CD19 CAR T-cell therapy.

Infections are a common, and often dangerous, side effect of many cancer therapies that can damage the immune system, including chemotherapy, bone marrow transplant and certain targeted drugs. Learning how to control these infections over the past decades has saved countless lives.

In CAR T-cell therapy, patients’ immune cells are genetically reprogrammed to kill their cancer cells. But aspects of the strategy, along with treatments patients may have received previously, can significantly impair the immune system, leaving patients vulnerable to infections.

This new study “sets a benchmark,” Hill said, for the field to begin to make progress in understanding and reducing infectious complications of CAR T-cell therapies, just as cancer researchers have done before for other therapies.

Read the full article by Susan Keown about cancer therapy from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center