Received: 19.04.2022 Accepted: 19.04.2022
Copyright © 2022
The Polish Society of Haematologists and Transfusiologists,
Insitute of Haematology and Transfusion Medicine.
All rights reserved.
On 28 November 2019, the first CAR-T therapy was carried out in Poland [1–3]. Today, several Polish centers are using this technology, and several others are preparing to do so. CAR-T therapy for children and young adults with acute lymphoblastic leukemia has been reimbursed by the National Health Fund since 1 September 2021, and for adults with non-Hodgkin lymphoma since 1 May 2022.
Today, c.150–200 patients are being treated with CAR-T cells every month in Europe, while more than 1,100 clinical trials are running worldwide. This hottest topic in hematology of the last few years has been traced also in Acta Haematologica Polonica [4–7].
In this issue, a set of five articles on CAR-T technology is presented: Dytfeld et al. [8] on outpatient therapy, Gil et al. [9] on artificial intelligence, Romejko-Jarosińska [10] on mantle cell lymphoma, Styczyński et al. [11] on vaccinations, and Żyłka et al. [12] on primary mediastinal lymphoma.
More indications will need reimbursement; expanding indications in ALL are needed, and multiple myeloma patients are being offered new hope. Although patients with T-cell ALL, AML and solid tumors can today only dream about such therapy, it is only a question of time before this becomes reality.
Authors’ contributions
JS — sole author.
Conflict of interest
None.
Financial support
None.
Ethics
The work described in this article has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans; EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments; Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals.