When patients with multiple myeloma become refractory to lenalidomide (Revlimid) or bortezomib (Velcade), or have penta-refractory disease, there have been limited options left for treatment, according to Suman Kambhampati, MD. Recent studies presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting indicate that meaningful changes may be on the horizon.
Notably, the anti-BCMA CAR T-cell therapy bb2121 had a median progression-free survival (PFS) of 11.8 months and a median duration of response of 10.8 months for patients with relapsed/refractory heavily pretreated multiple myeloma, according to updated findings from the multicenter phase I CRB-401 study presented at ASCO.1 The complete response (CR) or stringent CR rate was 50%, with an additional 36.4% of patients having a very good partial response. The objective response rate was 95.5%.
Another abstract presented at ASCO showed that administering carfilzomib (Kyprolis) once weekly at 70 mg/m2 with dexamethasone resulted in a prolonged PFS compared with the standard twice-weekly schedule in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma, according to results from the phase III ARROW study.2 The median PFS was 11.2 months (95% CI, 8.6-13.0) with once weekly carfilzomib and dexamethasone compared with 7.6 months (95% CI, 5.8-9.2) for the standard twice-weekly schedule of carfilzomib at 27 mg/m2 with dexamethasone (HR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.54-0.83; P = .0029)
originally published on onclive: https://www.onclive.com/web-exclusives/emerging-approaches-offer-hope-in-heavily-pretreated-myeloma