Chimeric antigen receptor-T-cell therapy in the management of glial tumors: A review

Abstract

Glioblastomas remain one of the final frontiers of modern medicine. While the treatment for cancer in general has improved by leaps and bounds, survival from glioblastomas is still dismal, with the average survival limited to 15-20 months with standard-of-care-therapy. Biologically, brain tumors have presented a unique set of problems—they are heterogeneous, and exist in an immunosuppressive environment, where the tumor milieu is manipulated to prevent the detection and destruction of malignant cells by the body’s own defence systems, thereby helping in the spread of disease. In addition, the presence of the blood–brain barrier has made the penetration of chemotherapeutic agents challenging. Chimeric antigen receptor-T-cell therapy has made it possible to engineer the patients’ own T cells to identify cancer-specific antigens and destroy the cells expressing them, with some encouraging results. This review summarizes the benefits and the limitations of such therapies and discusses the important trials that have been published todate.