Car T Therapy Side Effects

Some side effects can be severe or fatal.

Car t therapy side effects.

Some people have had serious side effects from this treatment especially as the car t cells multiply in the body to fight the cancer. When the modified t cells kill the tumor cells these then break into component parts and all the leftover gunk can be floating in your bloodstream. Car t cell therapy side effects. These problems can include tremors headaches confusion loss of balance trouble speaking seizures and sometime hallucinations.

As car t cells multiply they cause massive amounts of chemicals called cytokines to be released into the blood. These include neurotoxicity which can result in headache confusion and. In many cases crs is followed by a second wave of side effects that involve the nervous system according to dana farber s caron jacobson md medical director of the institute s immune effector cell therapy program and a leader of clinical trials of car t cell therapy for patients with treatment resistant large b cell lymphomas. Julie vose chief of the oncology hematology division at university of nebraska medical center tells survivornet connect.

The biggest risks are low blood counts infection and bleeding. Serious side effects of this release can include very high fevers and dangerously low blood pressure in the days after treatment is given. Again tumor lysis is a side effect showing that the car t cell treatment is working perhaps too well. While the therapy can lead to long lasting remissions for some patients with very advanced cancer it can also cause neurologic side effects such as speech problems tremors delirium and seizures.