A solid tumour is an abnormal mass of tissue that usually does not contain cysts or liquid areas. Solid tumours may be benign (not cancer), or malignant (cancer). Solid tumour types are named according to the type of cell they originate from. Examples of solid tumours are sarcomas, carcinomas, and lymphomas. Leukaemias (cancers of the blood) generally do not form solid tumours.
The word tumour does not always imply cancer. In discussing tumours that are malignant (cancerous), however, the term solid tumour is used to distinguish between a localised mass of tissue and leukaemia.
Frequency:
Excluding non-melanoma skin cancers, over 2 million new cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed in the US in 2025.
Official title:
Phase Ⅰ Study of EGFR Targeted TGFβR-KO CAR T Cells in the Treatment of Previously Treated Advanced EGFR-positive Solid Tumors
Chimeric antigen receptor-modified T (CAR-T) cell therapy has been identified as a breakthrough therapy in haematologic malignancies. In contrast to the promising efficacy seen in leukaemia, lymphoma and multiple myeloma, however, CAR-T cell therapy has not yielded satisfactory efficacy data in the study of solid tumours. One of the major challenges is the complicated immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment (TME) in solid tumours. It has been reported that transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) is one of the major regulatory factors in the TME, which plays a key role in promoting tumour initiation, metastasis, and suppressing anti-tumour immunity. In this Phase Ⅰ study, the sponsors plan to construct CAR-EGFR-TGFβR-KO T cells by knocking out TGF-β receptor Ⅱ through CRISPR-Cas9 genome-editing technology in order to study the anti-tumour activities and safety profiles of CAR-EGFR-TGFβR-KO T cells in the treatment of advanced unresectable or metastatic biliary tract cancer.
