Dr Jan Burger of MD Anderson Cancer Center highlights important studies on chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) presented at the American Society of Hematology 2022 annual meeting.
He begins with a study of patients treated with first-line ibrutinib plus venetoclax, in which some patients received fixed-duration treatment with ibrutinib and others continued on ibrutinib. The results supported the potential for treatment-free remission.
Another study focused on the triple combination of acalabrutinib, venetoclax, and obinutuzumab in treatment-naive patients with high-risk disease for whom the latter two therapies proved suboptimal. The triple combination delivered durable responses in this group.
Next, Dr Burger turns to a long-term pooled analysis of patients aged 65 years or older who were treated with ibrutinib in the first-line setting. The study compared survival among these patients vs age-matched persons without CLL in the general population and found comparable survival in these two groups.
In relapsed/refractory disease, Dr Burger discusses pirtobrutinib, an emerging Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitor (BTKi), which demonstrated efficacy in heavily pretreated patients regardless of prior therapy, reason for discontinuation of previous therapy, or mutation status.
He closes by examining results for the second-generation BTKi zanubrutinib showing superior progression-free survival compared with the first-generation agent ibrutinib in the phase 3 ALPINE study.
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Cite this: Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Highlights From ASH 2022 - Medscape - Jan 04, 2023.
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