When combined with a cocktail of chemotherapy drugs, two monoclonal antibodies, instead of one, appear to offer superior results in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, according to Mayo Clinic researchers working with the North Central Cancer Treatment Group (NCCTG).
Researchers say that adding the targeted therapy epratuzumab to a regimen known as R-CHOP resulted in an overall 12-month survival of 88 percent in 78 patients. While they call that a very good outcome, the researchers were especially encouraged because the survival rate was 85 percent in patients with high-risk disease.
“These results are very good and very promising, and hopefully will be an important advance over treatment now being offered to patients with this cancer,” says the study’s lead author, Ivana Micallef, M.D., a Mayo Clinic hematologist. “But we cannot yet say that is so, since the two different regimens haven’t been tested head to head.”
“Still, we are eager to do a randomized, phase III study because when we compare our results to some other studies of R-CHOP, our findings do look better,” she says. In general, those studies showed a 12-month progression-free survival (PFS) of 67 to 79 percent.
Phase III clinical trials are planned by the NCCTG which will randomize patients with either the R-CHOP or the new ER-CHOP (R-CHOP with the addition of epratuzumab). Large B-cell lymphoma is one of the most common and aggressive forms of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Rituximab has been approved by the FDA, epratuzumab is not. That means ER-CHOP treatment cannot be used outside of a clinical trial.
via: The Mayo Clinic News Blog
Researchers say that adding the targeted therapy epratuzumab to a regimen known as R-CHOP resulted in an overall 12-month survival of 88 percent in 78 patients. While they call that a very good outcome, the researchers were especially encouraged because the survival rate was 85 percent in patients with high-risk disease.
“These results are very good and very promising, and hopefully will be an important advance over treatment now being offered to patients with this cancer,” says the study’s lead author, Ivana Micallef, M.D., a Mayo Clinic hematologist. “But we cannot yet say that is so, since the two different regimens haven’t been tested head to head.”
“Still, we are eager to do a randomized, phase III study because when we compare our results to some other studies of R-CHOP, our findings do look better,” she says. In general, those studies showed a 12-month progression-free survival (PFS) of 67 to 79 percent.
Phase III clinical trials are planned by the NCCTG which will randomize patients with either the R-CHOP or the new ER-CHOP (R-CHOP with the addition of epratuzumab). Large B-cell lymphoma is one of the most common and aggressive forms of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Rituximab has been approved by the FDA, epratuzumab is not. That means ER-CHOP treatment cannot be used outside of a clinical trial.
via: The Mayo Clinic News Blog