A Mathematical Model for Pseudo-Progression in CAR-T therapy of B-cell Lymphomas

GustavLindwall

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology

"A Mathematical Model for Pseudo-Progression in CAR-T therapy of B-cell Lymphomas"

CAR-T cell therapy, where patient T cells are genetically modified to target CD19-presenting B cells, has transformed the treatment landscape for several types of B-cell lymphomas. However, this therapy often triggers a strong inflammatory response, which can cause the tumor to temporarily swell in the days following CAR-T infusion — a phenomenon known as pseudo-progression. In this work, we present a dynamical model of CAR-T cell therapy that explicitly incorporates the role of pro-inflammatory cytokines in shaping treatment outcomes. Our model reproduces a wide spectrum of clinical trajectories, including complete remission, treatment failure, and transient pseudo-progression. Importantly, the model’s parameters correspond to measurable patient-specific factors, allowing us to explore how individual patient characteristics influence long-term treatment success. The parametrization of the model maps on to measurable patient characteristics, and we discuss how these parameters impact the long term behavior of the model.
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