CAR T-Cell Therapy clinical trials at UCSD

The goal of this study is to understand why some people receiving chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy for cancer experience neurotoxicity. The main question it aims to answer is: Can a novel tool be developed to identify early the patients who will develop immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS, also called neurotoxicity) after chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy? Participants already scheduled for chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy as part of the medical care for their cancer will be evaluated with advanced neuroimaging techniques. In addition, neurocognitive assessments using questionnaires and measurement of biomarkers in blood (liquid biomarkers) will be performed to provide a comprehensive characterization of neurotoxicity following chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy. Assessments will be performed in the acute phase (2 to 14 days after chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy) and after approximately 3 months.

Objective: To collect information on how often a solid tumor cancer might lose the Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) by next generation sequencing and perform apheresis to collect and store an eligible participant's own T cells for future use to make CAR T-Cell therapy for their disease treatment. Design: This is a non-interventional, observational study to evaluate participants with solid tumors with a high risk of relapse for incurable disease. No interventional therapy will be administered on this study. Some of the information regarding the participant's tumor analysis may be beneficial to management of their disease. Participants that meet all criteria may be enrolled and leukapheresed (blood cells collected). The participant's cells will be processed and stored for potential manufacture of CAR T-cell therapy upon relapse of their cancer.