In a first trial, CAR T-cell therapy left three of six severe rheumatoid arthritis patients medication free

A cancer technique, aimed at the immune system instead, held up in its first clinical test.

Six patients with severe rheumatoid arthritis, three women and three men aged 31 to 69, were treated at the Charité hospital in Berlin with CD19 CAR T cells, the same class of engineered immune cells used against blood cancers. Disease activity fell markedly in all six, and three were in sustained remission without any rheumatoid arthritis medication during follow-up of up to one year, while the autoantibodies typical of the disease declined sharply. Cytokine release syndrome was mild to moderate in the participants, and the team reported no severe neurological complications or other serious adverse events. The results were published in Nature Medicine, and a second phase will compare the therapy against an approved B-cell drug in ten more patients.