CAR T Cells — A New Horizon for Autoimmunity?

The management of autoimmune diseases has improved substantially since the turn of the century, owing largely to the emergence of targeted biologic therapies. Nonetheless, treatment is still considered to be disease-suppressive and lifelong in most cases. In this issue of the Journal , Müller et al. describe a series of 15 patients with systemic autoimmunity treated with a single infusion of CD19-targeted chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells. 1 At a median follow-up of 15 months (range, 4 to 29), all were in remission or had had major reductions in symptoms, along with the disappearance of autoantibodies, and had discontinued all immunosuppressive . . .