Credit: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
In a major advance in the treatment of multiple myeloma, a CAR T-cell therapy has generated deep, sustained remissions in patients who had relapsed from several previous therapies, an international clinical trial has found.
In a study posted online today by the
New England Journal of Medicine, trial leaders report that almost 75% of the participants responded to the therapy, known as idecabtagene vicleucel (ide-cel), and one-third of them had a complete response, or disappearance of all signs of their cancer. These rates, and the duration of the responses, are significantly better than those produced by currently available therapies for patients with multiple relapses, according to investigators.
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Minimal residual disease (MRD) negativity and its duration led to significantly better progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma, new analyses of two randomized trials showed.
MRD-negative rates increased significantly with the addition of daratumumab (Darzalex) to standard therapy, from 6.7% with lenalidomide (Revlimid) and dexamethasone (Rd) to 32.5% with the addition of the anti-CD38 antibody (DRd) and from 1.6% with bortezomib (Velcade)-dexamethasone (Vd) to 15.1% with daratumumab-VD (DVd). The proportion of patients who had MRD-negative status for 6 months or longer increased about 10-fold when daratumumab was added to Rd or Vd.
Progression-free survival (PFS) increased with MRD-negativity and its duration, Hervé Avet-Loiseau, MD, of University Cancer Institute-Oncopole in Toulouse, France, and co-authors reported in the