David Koeckerling of Heidelberg University and colleagues from the UK, Germany, and Switzerland conducted a meta-analysis of 13 studies and found that the incidence of serious cardiac events following therapy for hematological malignancies with chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CAR-T cells) is relatively low. A total of 1,528 patients (median age 61 years; 66 percent men) who received this treatment (80 percent for lymphoma) participated in the studies. The study was published in JAMA Network Open.
The median follow-up period was 487 days. A random-effects meta-analysis showed that the overall incidence of ventricular arrhythmias was 0.66 percent; supraventricular arrhythmias, 7.79 percent; left ventricular dysfunction, 8.68 percent; heart failure, 3.87 percent; myocardial infarction, 0.62 percent; and cardiovascular death, 0.63 percent. The overall incidence of all-cause death was 30.01 percent. Sensitivity analyses yielded similar results. Thus, serious cardiovascular events after CAR-T therapy are generally infrequent; among these events, cardiac ejection fraction and supraventricular arrhythmias deserve special attention and monitoring, the authors conclude.
