A regional approach for CAR T-cell therapy for mesothelioma: from mouse models to clinical trial.

Adoptive T-cell therapy using chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) is an emerging form of immunotherapy that harnesses a patient’s own T cells to combat malignancies [1]. CAR T-cell therapy uses genetic engineering to express a receptor on T cells that binds to a tumor-associated antigen and activates T-cell cytotoxicity. T cells transduced with antigenspecific CARs are reinfused to the patient in an effort to target tumors. CAR T-cell therapy has already demonstrated promising results in hematologic malignancies [2]. However, translating this approach to solid tumors faces the additional barriers of T-cell homing and infiltration into the tumor. Published literature that has correlated improved prognosis with antitumor immune responses in solid tumors, including in malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) [3–5], underscores the need to investigate this promising t herapy in clinically relevant models.