Psychosocial characteristics of patients undergoing cellular immunotherapies and their caregivers across time

Abstract

Chimeric antigen receptor T-cells and other immunotherapies have markedly changed the paradigm of treatment for patients with relapsed or refractory hematologic malignancies. While notable in efficacy, immunotherapy is characterized by a significant possibility of life-threatening side effects. Consequently, patients are often required to have informal family caregivers present and to stay near the treating center for several weeks after cell infusion. Further, the responsibility of managing a great deal of physical care and emotional support falls to these caregivers. Given the novelty of immunotherapy treatment, there is a need to better understand the psychosocial experience of patients receiving this treatment and their caregivers. This article describes the psychosocial characteristics of patients undergoing cellular immunotherapies and their caregivers across time, including patient/caregiver distress, coping, and caregiver burden and preparedness.

Keywords:

• CAR-T
• cellular immunotherapy
• cancer
• caregiver
• psychosocial

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the patients, caregivers, and medical teams for helping us with this study. Editorial assistance was provided by the Moffitt Cancer Center’s Office of Scientific Publishing by Daley Drucker and Gerard Hebert; no compensation was given beyond their regular salaries.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this article.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the ECOG-ACRIN under Grant 5UG1CA189828-07; Federal Award Identification Number: UG1CA189828.