Do patients with CLL require CAR T-cell therapy?

Peter Hillmen, MBChB, PhD, FRCP, FRCPath, from St James's University Hospital Leeds, Leeds, UK, talks to us about the difficulties in novel therapies for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), namely the potentially dangerous toxicity observed in CAR T-cell therapy and B-cell depletion associated with using CD19 as a target for treatment, which presents an issue in terms of long-term immunity. He does however, note that it is likely that only a small proportion of patients would require CAR T-cell therapy and drug combinations in the future may be the main form of treatment for CLL. This interview was filmed at the European Hematology Association (EHA) 2017 Annual Congress in Madrid, Spain.