CAR T cell therapy (CAR-T) has proven to be disruptive in the treatment of some types of cancer. Now, a study published in ‘The New England Journal of Medicine’ shows the results of a small clinical trial carried out on 15 patients that shows that the therapy is feasible, safe and effective for patients with different autoimmune diseases, such as lupus erythematosus. . systemic (SLE). Fabian Müller’s team at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany examined patients with severe SLE, idiopathic inflammatory myositis, or systemic sclerosis who received a single infusion of CD19 T cells. Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune rheumatic disease that occurs in approximately 0.1% of the world’s population, with a high prevalence in young women. In Spain, its prevalence is estimated at 9 per 10,000 inhabitants. Related News standard No If your Covid symptoms last more than a month it may become persistent IR People with infections that lasted 30 days or more were 55% more likely to report having long Covid than those with more typical infections The Efficacy was evaluated up to two years after CAR-T cell infusion. Patients were followed for an average of 15 months. This team already published in “Nature Medicine” in 2022 the data of a hopeful study in five patients with systemic lupus erythematosus. Treated with CAR-T cell therapy, the 5 have been free of this disease for about 17 months. The results turned out to be very promising: all patients had experienced an improvement in symptoms, including remission of damage to internal organs, as well as the disappearance of autoantibodies related to the disease without the need for conventional therapies. Drug-free Although to date, there are no long-term data on the effectiveness of CAR-T cells in autoimmune diseases, the researchers write that these data could “inform us about the duration of drug-free remission in patients who reconstitute with B cells. The authors of the new work acknowledge that although their data provide new evidence on the short- and long-term safety and efficacy of T cell therapy in autoimmune diseases, the authors write that controlled clinical studies are needed. «Now, it is premature to judge whether these patients are really cured of their autoimmune disease, CAR-t therapy at least seems to be able to achieve a sustained remission of the disease without medications,» the authors say.