Challenges With CAR T Therapy in Community Practices

Peter A. McSweeney, MD, hematologist/oncologist at the Colorado Blood cancer Institute, discusses challenges with implementing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy in some community oncology practices.

There are large and small community oncology practices, explains McSweeney. Larger centers often have the resource to administer CAR T-cell therapy the way it is done in academic centers. For small community practices, giving CAR T-cell therapy usually requires a referral to an academic center.

The key challenge in the way of small community practices is the lack of infrastructure, according to McSweeney.

Transcript:

0:07 | Community practices come in different types. There are some quite large community malignancy programs, which are actually really clinically the equivalent of academic centers. And so, they handle all this pretty much according the same algorithms as the academic centers. The issue of you know, smaller oncology practices in this area really is, you know, not an issue right now. There's been very little penetration of CAR T-cell therapy, and these types of cellular therapies to those practices, although they are subtly showing interest in trying to develop capability.

0:44 | The biggest challenges for administering these CAR T cells in the community are developing a program that has the appropriate expertise and infrastructure for this type of work. And it's a very multifaceted type of therapy draws on inpatient and outpatient arrangements that meet the needs of the patients. And also the is a need for subspecialty support in the hospital for patients who have complications with the therapy.