The power of telemedicine to improve CAR-T cell therapy programs: lessons learned from COVID-19 pandemic.

Purpose: CAR-T programs will burden increasingly on healthcare systems, since the implementation of these therapies involves: multidisciplinary team collaboration, post-infusion hospitalization with risk of life-threatening toxicities, frequent in hospital visits and prolonged follow-up which heavily influence patients' quality of life. In this review we propose an innovative, telehealth-based, model for monitoring CAR-T patients: this method was used for managing a case of COVID-19 infection occurred two weeks after CAR-T cell infusion.

Methods: Several benefits for management of all these aspects of CAR-T programs could be made using telemedicine: for example, telemedicine real-time clinical monitoring could reduce the COVID-19 contagion risks for CAR-T patients.

Effectiveness of biosimilar pegfilgrastim in patients with multiple myeloma after high-dose melphalan and autologous stem cell transplantation.

Multiple myeloma (MM) is the main indication for autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT). Novel supportive therapies (e.g.

Identifying and managing CAR T-cell-mediated toxicities: on behalf of an Italian CAR-T multidisciplinary team.

Introduction: Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T-cell therapy is a new treatment for patients with hematologic malignancies in which other therapies have failed.

Areas Covered: The review provides an overview for recognizing and managing the most acute toxicities related to CAR-T cells.

Expert Opinion: The development of immune-mediated toxicities is a common challenge of CAR-T therapy.