Women treated with CAR T-cell therapy for a variety of autoimmune diseases can safely become pregnant afterward, a small study suggests.
CAR-T therapy involves removing a patient’s white blood cells, modifying them in a laboratory, and reinfusing and multiplying them with the modifications helping to “reset” the body’s immune defenses.
CAR-T therapies were originally used only in cancer patients, but researchers are increasingly testing them for autoimmune diseases like lupus, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis, all of which commonly afflict women of childbearing age.
Pregnancies in the presence of autoimmune diseases are linked with higher risks for mothers and babies. While CAR-T treatments can put patients into drug-free remission, the safety of pursuing pregnancy afterward is unclear because the treatment is so new.
For the current study, researchers tracked 14 pregnancies in 13 women with autoimmune diseases who had received CAR T-cell therapy. All conceptions occurred spontaneously without assisted reproductive technologies, according to a report in The New England Journal Of Medicine.
“The findings were notably reassuring,” the researchers said.
All eight babies born so far were healthy, full-term, with normal growth and immune markers, they reported.
No CAR T-cells or related complications were found in any newborn and no disease flares occurred during any pregnancy.
Another five pregnancies are still underway, according to the report. – Reuters
