Cancer therapy could help hard-to-match patients receive kidney transplants

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By Olivia Bowthorpe

CAR T-cell therapy could help some of the hardest-to-match kidney transplant patients receive donor organs, researchers have said.

The personalised immunotherapy, which is best known as a treatment for some cancers, was used in two highly sensitised patients who had previously been unable to find compatible kidneys. Both went on to undergo successful transplants.

A small proportion of patients on kidney transplant waiting lists are highly sensitised to human leukocyte antigens (HLA), the paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine said.

This means their immune system is likely to react against almost all donor kidneys, leaving them with very few compatible options.

The team led by Dr Ali Naji, professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, tested whether dual CAR T-cell therapy could reduce these antibodies by targeting the immune cells that produce them.

The study used a type of engineered immune cell to target CD19-positive B cells and another to target plasma cells.