| Summary: | Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) are the most common leukemias in children and elderly people, respectively. Standard therapies, such as chemotherapy, are only effective in 40% of ALL adult patients with a five-year survival rate and therefore new alternatives need to be used, such as immunotherapy targeting specific receptors of malignant cells. Among all the options, CAR (Chimeric antigen receptor)-based therapy has arisen as a new opportunity for refractory or relapsed hematological cancer patients. CARs were designed to be used along with T lymphocytes, creating CAR-T cells, but they are presenting such encouraging results that they are already in use as drugs. Nonetheless, their side-effects and the fact that it is not possible to infuse an allogenic CAR-T product without causing graft-versus-host-disease, have meant using a different cell source to solve these problems, such as Natural Killer (NK) cells. Although CAR-based treatment is a high-speed race led by CAR-T cells, CAR-NK cells are slowly (but surely) consolidating their position; their demonstrated efficacy and the lack of undesirable side-effects is opening a new door for CAR-based treatments. CAR-NKs are now in the field to stay.
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