Abstract
Patients with follicular lymphoma are expected to have relatively long survival due to slow disease progression, but the disease generally relapses repeatedly and remains incurable. Therefore, development of treatments for relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma is an urgent issue. The recent introduction of cellular immunotherapy has significantly changed treatment of B-cell malignancies. Clinical development of anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapy and CD20×CD3 bispecific antibody therapy for follicular lymphoma is underway. Multiple studies have also reported the effectiveness of CAR-T cell and bispecific antibody therapies for relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma, and some cellular immunotherapies have already been approved in Japan. While CAR-T therapy is highly effective and may offer a functional cure in some patients, it faces challenges such as limited access, high cost, and high toxicities. Bispecific antibodies, in contrast, have relatively mild toxicities and can be widely used in patients with poor general conditions, including elderly patients, but have problems such as the burden of long-term administration. Optimal patient selection, management of unique toxicities, and high costs remain issues to be resolved for cellular immunotherapy. This review summarizes the recent clinical data on cellular immunotherapy for follicular lymphoma.