In this issue of Blood, Bethge et al~1 present findings from the analysis of 356 patients treated with axicabtagene ciloleucel (axi-cel) or tisagenledeucel (tisa-cel) chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy for large B-cell lymphoma (LBCL) in a non-trial setting in 21 centers throughout Germany with a median follow-up of 11 months. While corroborating the excellent results of these therapies in a real-world setting with an overall response rate (ORR) of 65% and 12-month overall survival (OS) of 52%, they also add important insights into this growing standard-of-care literature. Their analysis is the first to report response to, rather than use of, bridging therapy as a predictor of outcome. Additionally, they report an adjusted 12-month nonrelapse mortality (NRM) of 5.5% in all patients, most occurring late (67%) and due to infection (62%). While their analysis invites a comparison between axi-cel and tisa-cel, differences between the patients being selected for, and the sites offering, each product result in biases that should preclude such a comparison.
NSTL
Amer Soc Hematology
