The interleukin‐6 connection: Understanding cytomegalovirus reactivation following <scp>CAR</scp> ‐T‐cell therapy
Of 84 patients with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma or multiple myeloma, 22 developed cytomegalovirus (CMV) viraemia following chimeric antigen receptor modified T (CAR-T) cell therapy, resulting in a proportion of 26% and a median time to reactivation of 15.5 days. Sustained high level of interleukin-6 (IL-6) is a significant risk factor for CMV reactivation without significant interaction across subgroups of diagnosis and target. Other risk factors include ≥3 grade cytokine release syndrome (CRS), B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA)-directed CAR and high-dose corticosteroids. Excessive IL-6 during CRS play an important role in the frequent CMV reactivation following CAR-T-cell immunotherapy.
Authors
- Suning Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6294-972X)
- Shengli Xue (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4609-616X)
- Xiaowen Tang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1766-7891)
- Tianyu Lu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7958-1594)
- Chongsheng Qian (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4237-1825)
- Chengcheng Fu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8623-848X)
- Jie Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2435-0382)
- Ying Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8015-3546)
- Jia Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4217-5039)
- Depei Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6312-3863)
- Ziling Zhu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6601-1648)
- Guanghua Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5085-8078)
- Zi-Hao Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6368-2158)
- Linghao Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-0295-7295)
Institutions
- Soochow University (CN)
- First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- British Journal of Haematology
- Published
- 2025-11-12
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1111/bjh.70246
- Primary Topic
- CAR-T cell therapy research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00