An overlooked Ally: Confronting the rehabilitation gap in modern cellular therapies—A scoping review with narrative synthesis of publicly available cellular therapy conference programs
Jaleel A. Mohammed, Sameer Desai, Anne Gonzales, Caroline Couthard, Shahrukh K. HashmiIntroduction:
Despite growing evidence supporting the benefits of rehabilitation across the treatment continuum, the extent to which physiotherapy (PT) is represented at professional hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) and chimeric antigen receptor therapy (CAR-T) conferences remains unclear. This study therefore aimed to evaluate the visibility of PT content at major international HCT and CAR-T conferences over the past 5 years.
Methods:
A scoping review of publicly available conference programs and proceedings was conducted for major HCT and CAR-T conferences held between 2021 and 2025 across Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Middle East (
Results:
Dedicated PT or rehabilitation scientific tracks were uncommon across the HCT and CAR-T conferences reviewed. PT/rehabilitation related content, where identified, was typically embedded within broader nursing, supportive care, or survivorship sessions. The International Society of Pediatric Oncology demonstrated the most consistent inclusion of rehabilitation-related presentations, while limited abstracts were identified within selected HCT conferences despite the absence of dedicated PT tracks. In contrast, oncology PT conferences consistently included dedicated rehabilitation-focused scientific sessions.
Conclusion:
This review identified limited visibility of PT and rehabilitation within publicly available HCT and CAR-T conference programs despite the growing evidence supporting rehabilitation across the cellular therapy continuum. These findings highlight an opportunity to strengthen multidisciplinary engagement and improve the visibility of rehabilitation science within future conference programs. However, conference programs represent only one component of knowledge translation and cannot determine whether observed representation reflects abstract submission patterns, conference programming decisions, or the broader rehabilitation research landscape. Future studies evaluating abstract submission and acceptance data are warranted.