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ABSTRACT
Introduction
New methods in cancer immunotherapy, such as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells, have shown promising results in destroying malignant cells. However, limitations and side effects of CAR-T cell therapy, such as graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), neurotoxicity, and cytokine release syndrome, have motivated researchers to investigate safer alternative cells like natural killer (NK) cells.
Area covered
NK cells can effectively recognize hematologic malignant cells and destroy them. Many clinical and preclinical studies investigate the efficacy of CAR-NK cells in treating lymphoma and other hematologic malignancies. The results of published clinical trials and preclinical studies have shown that CAR-NK cells could be an appropriate choice for treating lymphoma. In this review, we discuss the characteristics of CAR-NK cells, their role in treating B-cell and T-cell lymphoma, and the challenges faced by using them. We also highlight clinical trials using CAR-NK cells for treating lymphoma.
Expert opinion
CAR-NK cells have shown promising results in cancer therapy, especially B-cell lymphoma, with a much lower risk for GVHD, cytokine release syndrome, and neurotoxicity than CAR-T cells. Further investigations are required to overcome the obstacles of CAR-NK cell therapy, both generally, and in cancers like T-cell lymphoma.
Article highlights
CAR-NK cells could be an appropriate choice for treating B-cell lymphoma.
More investigations are required to design CAR-NK cells for treating T-cell lymphoma.
The risk of complications, such as cytokine release syndrome, graft-versus-host disease (using allogenic cells), and CNS toxicity in CAR-NK cell therapy, is much lower than in CAR-T cell therapy.
More studies are required to provide clinical data and overcome the obstacles of CAR-NK cell therapy.
This box summarizes key points contained in the article.
Declaration of interests
The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.
Reviewer disclosures
Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.
Author contributions
S Khanmohammadi: Investigation, Writing-original draft, Formal analysis, Visualization, Methodology. N Rezaei: Conceptualization, Supervision, Project administration, Writing - review & editing.