Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

John C. Byrd, MD, from The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James), provides an update on ibrutinib for the treatment of CLL.

Combination treatment with idelalisib plus rituximab was associated with a >70% improvement in OS in patients with high-risk relapsed/refractory CLL.

Several trials of ibrutinib, an oral BTK inhibitor, either alone or in combination with currently used therapies for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia were presented at the 55th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology.

Richard R. Furman, MD, from the New York Weill Cornell Medical Center, discusses the ability to avoid the administration of chemotherapy when using novel agents, such as idelalisib, to treat patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Adding ofatumumab to chlorambucil in patients with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia who are considered inappropriate for fludarabine improves clinical outcomes and is tolerable irrespective of patient age or fitness.

Ian W. Flinn, MD, PhD, from the Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discusses the preliminary efficacy of IPI-145 in patients with chronic lymphocyic leukemia (CLL).

Almost half of patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia attained objective responses when treated with an oral inhibitor of phosphoinositide-3-kinase-delta and -gamma.

ABT-199, an orally bioavailable selective inhibitor of the Bcl-2 protein as monotherapy, induced remissions in patients with relapsed/refractory CLL and SLL, including adverse-risk subsets of patients.

Patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and major comorbidities had significantly better outcomes when treated with the anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody obinutuzumab instead of rituximab.

Treatment with engineered donor T cells led to substantial tumor regression in patients with posttransplant relapsed B-cell malignancies, results of a small clinical study showed.

Valentin Goede, MD, from the University Hospital Cologne, discusses the efficacy findings from the stage 2 CLL11 study that examined obinutuzumab plus chlorambucil in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia with comorbidities.

Jennifer Brown, MD, PhD, from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses the development of the novel PI3K-delta inhibitor idelalisib as a treatment for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

John F. Seymour, MBBS, FRACP, PhD, discusses the efficacy of single-agent ABT-199 (GDC-0199), a novel Bcl-2 inhibitor, in high-risk relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia and small lymphocytic lymphoma.

The FDA has approved obinutuzumab plus chlorambucil as a first-line treatment for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, based on clinical trial data demonstrating that the combination more than doubled median PFS over the chemotherapy agent alone.

Drugs targeting B-cell receptor signaling pathways are improving outcomes for patients with B-cell lymphomas; these novel agents include idelalisib and ibrutinib, and are considered a breakthrough for CLL and other B-cell lymphomas.

A phase III study of the PI3K-delta inhibitor idelalisib in combination with rituximab has been stopped early following a positive interim analysis.

Jennifer Woyach, MD, assistant professor of Internal Medicine, Division of Hematology, The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the role of Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

The monoclonal antibody ofatumumab has received Breakthrough Therapy designation from the FDA that could allow for earlier use in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Obinutuzumab (GA101), a novel antibody that targets CD20, demonstrated a dramatic advantage in response rates when added to chlorambucil compared with the chemotherapy agent alone in elderly patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Ibrutinib was well tolerated and highly effective in eradicating tumor cells in both treatment-naïve and relapsed/refractory patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia in an ongoing phase II study.