A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggests CAR T-cell therapy could become a highly effective treatment for SLE patients who do not respond to current lupus therapeutics.
The study included 15 patients — eight with lupus, four with systemic sclerosis (scleroderma), and three with idiopathic inflammatory myositis, a rare muscle disease. Researchers were able to eliminate or reduce symptoms and disease biomarkers with a single infusion of CAR T cells designed to target B cells, the immune cells that are key to driving autoimmunity.
There were no relapses among the study’s lupus patients, who were monitored for up to two years after the treatment.
