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Inpatient rehabilitation outcomes of cancer patients after Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell Therapy

Published in the American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, a brief report explores how cancer patients fare in inpatient rehabilitation after receiving chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy. Despite the increasing use of CAR T-cell therapy in treating hematologic malignancies, its impact on post-treatment functional recovery remains underreported. Given the risk of functional decline due to treatment-related complications such as prolonged hospitalization, cytokine release syndrome, and neurologic effects, understanding rehabilitation outcomes in this population is clinically important. The authors hypothesized that CAR T-cell recipients would show comparable or even superior rehabilitation outcomes to similar patients with hematologic cancers who did not undergo this therapy.

The study used a retrospective matched cohort design, drawing from 84 patients admitted to a rehabilitation facility between 2017 and 2022. Nineteen patients who had received CAR T-cell therapy were matched to nineteen non-CAR T-cell patients based on demographics and cancer diagnosis using propensity scores. Functional progress was evaluated through section GG/Functional Independence Measure (FIM) ratios across self-care, transfers, and overall mobility domains. Statistical analyses were performed to detect any significant differences in functional gains during the inpatient rehabilitation stay between the two groups.

While there were no significant differences in self-care (p = 0.643) or transfer scores (p = 0.930), CAR T-cell patients showed a trend toward greater improvement in overall mobility (median ratio gain 0.333 vs. 0.133; p = 0.081), suggesting a potentially stronger response to rehabilitation. All patients completed their inpatient rehabilitation without adverse events related to functional recovery. These findings support the idea that CAR T-cell therapy, despite its intensity, does not preclude successful rehabilitation. In fact, patients may demonstrate robust gains in physical function, reinforcing the value of inpatient rehab for this growing population and encouraging further studies with larger sample sizes.

Reference:

C Villanueva EW, Lewis CW, Abplanalp K, et al. Inpatient Rehabilitation Outcomes of Cancer Patients After Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell Therapy. Am J Phys Med Rehabil. Published online May 9, 2025.

http://doi.org/10.1097/PHM.0000000000002774