Mediators of Inflammation (Jan 2023)

Effects of CAR-T Cell Therapy on Immune Cells and Related Toxic Side Effect Analysis in Patients with Refractory Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

  • Lianlian Li,
  • Jie Gao,
  • Zhaojun Sun,
  • Xiaolei Li,
  • Ning Wang,
  • Rui Zhang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1155/2023/2702882
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2023

Abstract

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Objective. To observe the effects of chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cell immunotherapy on immune cells and related toxic side effects in patients with refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Methods. A retrospective study was conducted in 35 patients with refractory ALL. The patients were treated with CAR-T cell therapy in our hospital from January 2020 to January 2021. The efficacy was evaluated at one and three months post treatments. The venous blood of the patients was collected before treatment, 1 month after treatment, and 3 months after treatment. The percentage of regulatory T cells (Treg cells), natural killer (NK) cells, and T lymphocyte subsets (CD3+, CD4+, and CD8+ T cells) was detected by flow cytometry. The ratio of CD4+/CD8+ was calculated. Patient’s toxic side effects such as fever, chills, gastrointestinal bleeding, nervous system symptoms, digestive system symptoms, abnormal liver function, and blood coagulation dysfunction were monitored and recorded. The incidence of toxic and side effects was calculated, and the incidence of infection was recorded. Results. After one month of CAR-T cell therapy in 35 patients with ALL, the efficacy evaluation showed that complete response (CR) patients accounted for 68.57%, CR with incomplete hematological recovery (CRi) patients accounted for 22.86%, and partial disease (PD) patients accounted for 8.57%, and the total effective rate was 91.43%. In addition, compared with that before treatment, the Treg cell level in CR+CRi patients treated for 1 month and 3 months decreased prominently, and the NK cell level increased dramatically (P0.05). Conclusion. CAR-T cell therapy had a good effect on patients with refractory ALL by regulating the immune function of the body via mediating the content of immune cells. CAR-T cell therapy may have therapeutic effect on refractory ALL patients with mild side effects and high safety.