NCOG-48. A PROSPECTIVE LONGITUDINAL NEUROCOGNITIVE OUTCOME STUDY IN PATIENTS TREATED WITH CAR-T-CELL THERAPY AT 6 MONTHS Free

Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy carries risk of significant neurocognitive function (NCF) toxicities. Longer term NCF outcomes have yet to be reported. The goal of the current study was to assess NCF prospectively in patients undergoing CAR-T.

Adult patients undergoing CAR-T participated in NCF testing with a cognitive clinical trial battery (CTB) at baseline and 6 months after treatment. Group change on each test and on the composite score (CTBC) was examined with paired t-tests and individual change, defined as +/-1 SD on CTBC, was also reported.

Forty patients (M_age=62.45, 63% male, 97% Non-Hispanic or Latino) completed NCF testing at baseline, and 28 patients completed NCF measures 6 months post-CAR-T (20 complete CTBC, 8 partial CTB, completed virtually). At baseline, 13/40 patients (33%) had significant impairment in NCF (CTBC Z-score < -1.5), and 2/20 (10%) were impaired at follow-up. In the 20 individuals with pre- and 6-month post-CAR-T CTBC scores, there was no significant change (t(19)=-0.926; p=0.366). Examination of each individual test score also showed no changes (immediate memory (t(26)=-0.084; p=0.934), delayed memory (t(26)=-0.207; p=0.837), memory recognition (t (26)=-0.062; p=0.951) executive function (t(18)=-0.447, p=0.660), and verbal fluency (t(27)=-0.035, p=0.972)). Individual analyses of CTBC at follow-up found the number of patients with meaningful decline=1 (5%), improvement=2 (10%), and no change=17 (85%) on CTBC.

Although CAR-T can be associated with acute change in NCF, this prospective longitudinal study showed stable cognitive performance 6 months after treatment. To our knowledge, this is the longest prospective longitudinal study of NCF in CAR-T survivors. This study is limited in that some subjects completed NCF testing virtually at follow-up, limiting the sample size for unconfounded comparison of performance. Future work will examine longer term outcomes and subjective cognitive function in CAR-T survivors.