BONE MARROW TRANSPL

Anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CART) has rapidly been adopted as the standard third-line therapy to treat aggressive B-cell lymphomas (ABCL) after failure of second-line therapy despite the lack of direct comparisons with allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (alloHCT)-based strategies. Using the Grupo Espanol de Trasplante y Terapia Celular (GETH-TC) registry, we selected patients with the following characteristics: CART or alloHCT performed between 2016 and 2021; >= 18 years old; ABCL diagnosis; >= 2 lines of therapy; and either anti-CD19 CART or alloHCT as therapy at relapse. The analysis included a total of 316 (CART =215, alloHCT = 101) patients. Median follow-up was 15 and 36 months for the CART and alloHCT cohorts, respectively. In the multivariate analysis, CART was confirmed to be similar to alloHCT for the primary study endpoint (progression-free survival) (hazard ratio [HR] 0.92, CI95%:0.56-1.51, p= 0.75). Furthermore, when the analysis was limited to only patients with chemosensitive diseases (complete and partial response) at infusion (CART = 26, alloHCT=93), no differences were reported (progression free survival at month +18:65% versus 55%, p = 0.59). However, CART had lower non-relapse mortality (HR 0.34, 95% CI: 0.13-0.85, p = 0.02). Given the lower toxicity and similar survival outcomes, these results suggest the use of CART before alloHCT. Bone Marrow Transplantation