Friday, May 3, 2019

Ibrutinib plus R-CHOP improves survival among younger patients with aggressive lymphoma subtype

The addition of ibrutinib to standard R-CHOP chemotherapy improved EFS, PFS and OS among patients aged younger than 60 years with untreated nongerminal center B-cell diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, according to results of a randomized, phase 3 study.
The combination, however, appeared associated with increased toxicity and resulted in worse outcomes among patients aged older than 60 years.
“The interaction between age and toxicity was surprising [because] it was not observed within the context of the phase 1 trial that we have published,” Anas Younes, MD, chief of the lymphoma service and Steven Greenberg chair at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. “At the present time, there is no obvious biological explanation, but this will be addressed through planned extensive correlative studies. R-CHOP plus ibrutinib is not commonly given to patients with other types of lymphoma.”
DLBCL accounts for as many as 40% of all lymphoma cases, making it the most common form of lymphoma in the world. A previous phase 1 study appeared to demonstrate the safety of ibrutinib (Imbruvica; Pharmacyclics, Janssen) in combination with R-CHOP chemotherapy — which consists of rituximab (Rituxan; Genentech, Biogen) plus cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisone — among patients with untreated B-cell lymphoma, including DLBCL.
Younes and colleagues specifically investigated whether ibrutinib improves the efficacy of R-CHOP in patients with untreated nongerminal center B-cell or activated B-cell diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.
Researchers randomly assigned 838 patients (median age, 62 years; range, 19-88; 53.3% men) to R-CHOP with ibrutinib at 560 mg daily (n = 419) or with placebo (n = 419) in a 21-day cycle for six or eight cycles, depending upon institutional guidelines.
Three-quarters of the patients (75.9%) had the activated B-cell DLBCL subtype.
EFS among the intent-to-treat population and patients with the activated B-cell subtype served as the study’s primary endpoint. Secondary endpoints included PFS, OS and safety.
Median follow-up was 34.8 months.
Results showed that the addition of ibrutinib to R-CHOP did not improve EFS compared with placebo and R-CHOP in the intent-to-treat population (HR = 0.93; 95% CI, 0.72-1.2) or the activated B-cell population (HR = 0.94; 95% CI, 0.7-1.27).
Ibrutinib also did not increase PFS (HR = 0.91; 95% CI, 0.71-1.18), OS (HR = 0.99; 95% CI, 0.71-1.38) or rates of overall response (89.3% vs. 93.1%) and complete response (67.3% vs. 68%) among the intent-to-treat population.
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