Dr. Goy on Acalabrutinib Versus Ibrutinib in MCL

Andre Goy, MD, chairman and director, chief of Lymphoma, and director of Clinical and Translational Cancer Research at John Theurer Cancer Center, discusses acalabrutinib (Calquence) versus ibrutinib (Imbruvica) in the treatment of patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL).

The BTK inhibitor acalabrutinib was approved in late 2017 for the treatment of adult patients following at least 1 prior therapy. This approval was based on the findings from the 124-patient ACE-LY-004 phase II trial, in which the investigator assessed objective response rate was 81% with acalabrutinib (95% CI, 73%-87%).

Acalabrutinib joins ibrutinib, another BTK inhibitor, in the MCL treatment landscape. Goy says that from what has been observed with acalabrutinib, the safety profile is better than ibrutinib, and there was no atrial fibrillation in over 100 patients. However, the criteria of the acalabrutinib trial were slightly different than that of the ibrutinib trial, and there is no head-to-head data with these 2 agents.