Oluwole OO, Bouabdallah K, Muñoz J, et al. - Use of prophylactic corticosteroids and earlier corticosteroid and/or tocilizumab intervention in patients receiving axicabtagene ciloleucel (axi-cel) for refractory large B-cell lymphoma resulted in no grade 3 or higher cytokine release syndrome (CRS), a low rate of grade 3 or higher neurologic events (NEs) and high response rates.

• All patients were administered conditioning chemotherapy (days −5 through −3), 2 × 10 ⁶ chimaeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells/kg (day 0) and once-daily oral dexamethasone [10 mg, day 0 (before axi-cel) through day 2].

• Overall 40 patients were treated with axi-cel.

• 80% of patients (all grade ≤2) suffered CRS, and 58% and 13% of patients experienced any grade and grade 3 or higher NEs, respectively.

• A median follow-up of 8·9 months revealed objective and complete response rates of 95% and 80% respectively.