Trial demonstrates acute lymphoblastic leukemia treatment advance (Chemo with blinatumomab)

Medical Xpress / American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting ^

[ConservativeMind]

Research reveals a major treatment advance for adults with newly diagnosed B lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The randomized study evaluated blinatumomab immunotherapy in patients with a good prognosis after an initial round of chemotherapy. After about 3.5 years of follow-up, 83% of the patients who went on to receive additional standard consolidation chemotherapy plus experimental blinatumomab were alive versus 65% of those who received chemotherapy only.

Current treatments for newly-diagnosed ALL frequently lead to remission. Still, unfortunately, relapses often occur in patients, leading to poor survival rates even in those with no measurable residual disease (MRD) after induction chemotherapy. An MRD test looks for any cancer cells that were not killed by cancer treatments.

Blinatumomab is a "targeted" drug that directs a patient's T cells (part of the immune system) to recognize malignant B cells and destroy them. It has two FDA approvals for patients with B lineage ALL.

"This is the first randomized trial to demonstrate that we are able to improve the survival of ALL patients who are in complete remission, including by sensitive MRD testing, and establishes the addition of blinatumomab immunotherapy to standard consolidation chemotherapy as the new standard of care," said Selina M. Luger MD, FRCPC.

A planned interim analysis showed that among the 224 MRD- patients, there were 56 deaths: 17 in the chemotherapy plus blinatumomab arm and 39 in the control chemotherapy arm. The median follow-up at the time was 43 months. Median overall survival was not reached in the chemotherapy plus blinatumomab arm versus nearly 6 years (71.4 months) in the control arm.

The study found no new safety concerns associated with the use of chemotherapy plus blinatumomab, and used 72- and 96-hour infusions in 72% of the patients. These infusion times proved necessary to feasibly conduct the trial.

[ConservativeMind]

The exact steps used were also described in the write up, but there was no way to properly condense everything into 300 words.

The monitoring is still ongoing. It’s possible the long term results are much better than this could show.

[ConservativeMind]

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