Application and progress of CAR therapy on malignances: from CAR-T to CAR-NK

Abstract

For some malignances that are highly aggressive and metastatic are usually considered incurable. However, with the advent of immunotherapy, this therapy could be possibly effective after other three major therapies: surgery, radiation, chemotherapy. As an emerging immunotherapy, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells have been applied to treat hematologic malignances and some patients achieved long-term remission and temporary cure. However, CAR-T cells also bring side effects such as cytokine release syndrome (CRS), neurotoxicity, etc. Moreover, CAR-T cells did not perform well in solid tumors, for the reason that CAR-T cells are difficult to break through external barrier of solid tumors, at the same time maintain cytotoxicity and persistence inside. Therefore, we introduce CAR-NK cells therapy on the basis of CAR-T cells. At present all CAR-NK cell therapies are in clinical trials, its effectiveness has been initially observed. Compared with CAR-T cells, patients with hematologic malignances received CAR-NK cell therapies showed few side effects such as CRS and neurotoxicity.