Development of ALL-Hematotox: predicting post-CAR T-cell hematotoxicity in B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Immune effector cell–associated hematotoxicity (ICAHT) is a major B-cell targeted chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell related toxicity. Although ICAHT incidence and severity is documented in large B-cell lymphoma (LBCL), mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), and multiple myeloma (MM), ICAHT has not been described in B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL). Similarly, the CAR-HEMATOTOX (CAR-HT) model, designed to predict severe prolonged neutropenia (≥14 days of absolute neutrophil count [ANC] <500/μL), has been validated in LBCL, MCL, and MM, but not in B-ALL. As B-ALL bone marrow (BM) infiltration can impact cytopenias, we sought to describe ICAHT and assess CAR-HT for predicting hematotoxicity in B-ALL. In a cohort of 156 children and young adults with relapsed/refractory B-ALL, the median duration of severe neutropenia (ANC <500/μL) was 13 days (95% confidence interval, 10-16 days), with 83 (53%) experiencing grade ≥3 ICAHT. Applying CAR-HT, nearly 90% were classified as high risk, demonstrating limited discriminative power and prompting further development. Using the association identified between BM disease burden and postinfusion neutropenia (r = 0.64, P < .0001), we developed the ALL-Hematotox (ALL-HT) score, which substitutes BM disease burden for ferritin in CAR-HT. The ALL-HT score associated with severe prolonged neutropenia (area under the curve = 0.84, P < .0001), and appropriately discriminated high-risk patients (47%) who had more cumulative days of neutropenia (26 vs 4 days; P < .0001), fewer rates of complete response (88% vs 98%; P = .03), and shorter median overall survival (9.8 vs 24 months; log-rank P = .0002). ALL-HT was also validated in 2 independent cohorts. The ALL-HT score refines a widely accepted predictive model of postinfusion hematotoxicity, which is applicable in B-ALL.