Patients will receive CART-cells with one or more specificities according to the phenotypic profile of the leukemic cells in each individual patient. This will allow targeting the entire leukemia cell population to induce deeper and more durable remissions. Although it would be possible to administer CART-cells targeting all possible antigens to all patients, this indiscriminate approach would increase the CAR T-cell dose and hence, the risk of toxicity in patients that could be effectively treated with a lower, less toxic, CAR T-cell dose. Moreover, the cost of the procedure increases proportionally with the number of CAR T-cells used, limiting our capacity to enrol other patients. Reducing the number of CART-cells below the dose that we set, will inevitably increase the risk of treatment failure, according to the literature and our own experience.
The objective of this study is to assess the safety and efficacy of a immunophenotype-adapted approach using CAR T-cells in patients with high-risk, refractory or relapsed B-lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL).