Assessment of Salvage Regimens Post-Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cell Therapy for Patients with Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma.

Anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy (CAR19) represents a critical treatment modality for patients with relapsed/refractory (R/R) diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). However, the majority of patients subsequently experience disease progression following CAR19, and data are limited on assessing the best salvage regimen for these patients. This study aimed to evaluate outcomes in R/R DLBCL patients with progressive disease post-CAR19 and to assess variables that predict response to salvage therapy. We performed a retrospective analysis of all patients with DLBCL who received CAR19 at our institution between January 2018 and February 2021, collecting data on demographic characteristics, disease characteristics, best response to CAR19, date of relapse or progression, and first salvage therapy and response to salvage. We analyzed patients according to whether they responded to CAR19 (responders) or did not (nonresponders). Salvage regimens were classified into 6 groups for analysis. Primary endpoints included overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS), calculated using the Kaplan-Meier method. Cox models were fit to evaluate the effect of prognostic factors. Among the 120 patients who received CAR19 during the analysis period were 69 responders who achieved a complete or partial response to CAR19 and 51 nonresponders, including 44 with stable or progressive disease and 7 who died before assessment. Thirty responders relapsed and 26 received salvage therapy, and 24 nonresponders received salvage therapy. The primary salvage regimens included lenalidomide-based regimens (n = 17; 34%), BTKi (n = 10; 20%), checkpoint inhibitor-based (n = 7; 14%), chemo-immunotherapy (n = 5; 10%), allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (n = 5; 10%), and others (n = 6; 12%). There was no significant difference in OS based on salvage regimen (P = .4545). Responders who received salvage therapy had significantly longer OS than nonresponders (median OS not reached versus 10.9 months; P = .0187), and response to CAR19 and elevated lactate dehydrogenase level at time of salvage treatment were the only two statistically significant prognostic factors after accounting for other variables. Responders to CAR19 had significantly better outcomes with salvage therapy compared with nonresponders to CAR19. There was no significant difference in outcomes based on salvage regimen. Future research is needed to assess the best salvage regimen post-CAR19 failure.

Reporting of Cardiovascular Events in Clinical Trials Supporting FDA Approval of Contemporary Cancer Therapies.

BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) has become an increasingly common limitation to effective anticancer therapy. Yet, whether CVD events were consistently reported in pivotal trials supporting contemporary anticancer drugs is unknown. OBJECTIVES: The authors sought to evaluate the incidence, consistency, and nature of CVD event reporting in cancer drug trials. METHODS: From the Drugs@FDA, clinicaltrials.gov, MEDLINE, and publicly available U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) drug reviews, all reported CVD events across latter-phase (II and III) trials supporting FDA approval of anticancer drugs from 1998 to 2018 were evaluated. The primary outcome was the report of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), defined as incident myocardial infarction, stroke, heart failure, coronary revascularization, atrial fibrillation, or CVD death, irrespective of treatment arm. The secondary outcome was report of any CVD event. Pooled reported annualized incidence rates of MACE in those without baseline CVD were compared with reported large contemporary population rates using relative risks. Population risk differences for MACE were estimated. Differences in drug efficacy using pooled binary endpoint hazard ratios on the basis of the presence or absence of reported CVD were also assessed. RESULTS: Overall, there were 189 trials, evaluating 123 drugs, enrolling 97,365 participants (58.5 ± 5 years, 46.0% female, 72.5% on biologic, targeted, or immune-based therapies) with 148,138 person-years of follow-up. Over a median follow-up of 30 months, 1,148 incidents of MACE (375 heart failure, 253 myocardial infarction, 180 strokes, 65 atrial fibrillation, 29 revascularizations, and 246 CVD deaths; 792 in the intervention vs. 356 in the control arm; p < 0.01) were reported from the 62.4% of trials noting any CVD. The overall weighted-average incidence was 542 events per 100,000 person-years (716 per 100,000 in the intervention arm), compared with 1,408 among similar-aged non-cancer trial subjects (relative risk: 0.38; p < 0.01), translating into a risk difference of 866. There was no association between reporting CVD events and drug efficacy (hazard ratio: 0.68 vs. 0.67; p = 0.22). CONCLUSIONS: Among pivotal clinical trials linked to contemporary FDA-approved cancer drugs, reported CVD event rates trail expected population rates.