Overview and future development of CAR-T therapy

Cancer, as one of the highest mortality rate diseases, and the research on its treatment is endless. Traditional therapies like chemotherapy or radiotherapy all have serious side effects and unstable therapeutic effects. The treatment process of patients is excruciating. Therefore, CAR-T cell therapy as a bright star in immunotherapy gradually emerged in the world. CAR-T therapy needs to alter a patients own T cells to kill cancer cells, so it has high specificity for each individual and can design the most suitable CAR-T cells for different patients based on their immune systems and tumor cells status. Its strong proliferation and survival ability let patients have a long-term anti-tumor effect and prevent the recurrence of cancer very well. Although it still has side effects, unstable durability and the threat of immune escape mechanisms, it still shows good results in many clinical trials which undoubtedly proves that it is a way to treat cancer with great potential. CAR-T will gradually improve its safety and durability to address the demand of more patients as technology and instruments improve. This review discusses the basic principles of CAR-T, applications in clinical trials, difficulties and impendingfuture of CAR-T therapy, gives a thorough overview of the present situation and potential development of CAR-T therapy in cancer treatment.