Evolving Toxicity Management Strategies for CAR T-Cell and Bispecific Therapies

Allison Tanner, PA-C, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, presented an overview of cellular therapies, including CAR T-cell therapy and bispecific antibodies, with a focus on recognizing and managing key toxicities such as cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS) at the 2025 Lymphoma, Leukemia & Myeloma (LL&M) Congress APP Institute in New York, New York.

She emphasized practical guidance on identifying, grading, and treating these adverse events, along with emerging and nuanced toxicity patterns as the field rapidly evolves.

Allison concluded, “We're learning so much about it. New information and recommendations are coming out every day.”

Transcript:

Hi, my name's Allison Tanner. I'm a physician assistant at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. I work with the inpatient hematology group, so we cover lymphoma, leukemia, myeloma, and we also do the cellular therapy and bispecifics within our group as well.

I am here at the LL&M Congress in New York City. It's very exciting. Lots of good information that's coming out. My talk today specifically is about cellular therapies. We are discussing CAR T, which is chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, as well as bispecifics and their associated toxicities, specifically CRS and neurotoxicity or ICANS, the immune effector cell neurotoxicities. We are discussing all things related to treatment for those side effects, as well as some nuanced toxicities that are associated with these therapies as well.

It's a rapid, growing field within all things, not just blood cancer, but other malignancies. We're starting to see it expand into neurological conditions and rheumatological conditions. If you're not comfortable with these cell therapies, you should probably get pretty comfortable and familiar with them, at least with identifying and recognizing these unique side effect profiles that CRS and ICANS and just initially how to treat it.

That's what we really talk about in today's presentation is how do you identify, how do you grade, and how do you treat these side effects, as well as some of the up-and-coming research, because it's still such a new therapy.

We're learning so much about it. New information and recommendations are coming out every day. We're really highlighting some of those changes and if I come back and give this talk next year, it might look very different. 

Source:

Tanner A. Early AE Intervention in CAR-T and Bispecific Treatments: CRS, Neurotoxicity & Cytopenia Protocols. Presented at Lymphoma, Leukemia & Myeloma Congress APP Institute; October 18, 2025. New York, NY.