Dr. Goy on Discrepancies in Clinical Trial vs Real-World MCL Treatment

Andre H. Goy, MD, physician in chief, Hackensack Meridian Health Oncology Care Transformation Services, chairman, chief physician officer, chief, Lymphoma Division, John Theurer Cancer Center, Hackensack University Medical Center, discusses clinical trial vs real-world treatments in patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL).

MCL clinical trials have shown long-term progression-free survival and overall survival benefits with frontline therapies such as rituximab (Rituxan) and stem cell transplant, as well as novel therapies in the relapsed/refractory setting, Goy says. These trial regimens have altered the treatment paradigm for MCL, particularly in patients younger than 65 years, Goy notes.

However, these clinical trial findings do not always represent the real-world treatment landscape in MCL, Goy emphasizes. Although interest in the real-world setting is increasing, many real-world patients still receive suboptimal therapies such as rituximab plus bendamustine (BR) or R-CHOP (rituximab plus cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone), Goy says. A disconnect exists between the highly effective regimens used in clinical trials and the therapies that make their way to real-world patients, Goyconcludes.