Side Effects Of Car T Cell Therapy

Car t cell therapy is often called the next big breakthrough in cancer treatment.

Side effects of car t cell therapy.

Learn how it s done it s side effects and if it s right for you. The most common side effects seen are. Car t cell therapy is a type of immunotherapy that s offering hope to some non hodgkin lymphoma patients but the side effects are different from those of other cancer treatments. Serious side effects of this release can include very high fevers.

These include neurotoxicity which can result in headache confusion and. Car t cell therapy side effects. Felipe samaniego m d shares what to know. Car t cell therapy is a form of immunotherapy in which patients t cells are modified to become better at tracking down and destroying tumor cells.

Severe nausea vomiting diarrhea. The studies examined cytokine release syndrome and neurologic toxicities. Instead car t cell therapy can lead to a short lived but severe reaction called cytokine release syndrome. Despite the therapeutic successes of car t cell therapy the intervention carries the risk of severe side effects.

The side effects you may have and how serious they are will depend on how healthy you are before treatment your type of cancer how advanced it is the type of t cell transfer therapy you are receiving and the dose. Some people have had serious side effects from this treatment especially as the car t cells multiply in the body to fight the cancer. Severe muscle or joint pain shortness of breath low blood pressure and fast heart rate. Risks and side effects.

You won t have hair loss that commonly follows chemotherapy. Car t cells are made by extracting thousands of a patient s t cells sending them to a lab where they re outfitted with genes and proteins that improve their cancer fighting prowess and then re infusing them into the patient. Cd19 is also expressed on normal b cells which are responsible for producing antibodies that kill pathogens. Another potential side effect of car t cell therapy an off target effect is a mass die off of b cells known as b cell aplasia.

These normal b cells are also often killed by the infused car t cells. As car t cells multiply they cause massive amounts of chemicals called cytokines to be released into the blood. T cell transfer therapy can cause side effects which people experience in different ways.