Lori Leslie, MD, Assistant Professor at Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine, discusses a study presented at ASH 2020 looking at the clinical outcomes of high-risk chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients receiving ibrutinib.
CLL is a rare blood cancer resulting in a build-up of lymphocytes in bone marrow, lymph nodes, and blood. The disease is treatable, but relapse is very common.
The study presented is a retrospective analysis describing treatment patterns and time to next treatment (TTNT) in patients with high-risk CLL treated with ibrutinib or chemoimmunotherapy. As Dr. Leslie explains, high-risk features are tested in CLL patients and most commonly include del(17p), del(11q), TP53 mutation, or unmutated IGHV. It was found that high-risk CLL patients treated with ibrutinib had a significantly shorter TTNT compared to high-risk patients treated with chemoimmunotherapy. Furthermore, 75% of patients treated with ibrutinib required one line of treatment compared to 47% of patients treated with chemoimmunotherapy. This supports previous data indicating that targeted therapy is a better treatment method for high-risk CLL patients than chemoimmunotherapy.
For more information about CLL and other rare cancers, visit checkrare.com/diseases/cancers/
