May 19, 2016
September 2012, Vol 1, No 4
Progressive Myeloma Responds to Monoclonal Antibody
Conference NewsMore than 80% of patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma responded to a monoclonal antibody against a cell surface protein expressed by almost all myeloma cells, results of a phase 2 clinical trial showed.
All patients received lenalidomide and dexamethasone and were randomized to 10 or 20 mg of
elotuzumab.
The overall response rate included 92% of patients treated with 10 mg of elotuzumab and 73% of those who received 20 mg. After a median follow-up of 17.2 months, the median progression-free survival (PFS) had not been reached among patients in the 10-mg cohort, whereas patients assigned to 20 mg of elotuzumab had a median PFS of 18 months.
“These data are really encouraging when compared to those achieved with lenalidomide and high-dose dexamethasone,” Philippe Moreau, MD, a hematologic oncologist at Hotel-Dieu University Hospital in Nantes, France, said at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
An analysis limited to patients who had received only 1 prior regimen showed that all patients treated with the 10-mg dose of elotuzumab had objective responses, as did 82% of those who received the higher dose of the monoclonal antibody.
“[These results] indicate that this combination could also be effective in frontline treatment,” Moreau added.
Elotuzumab is a humanized monoclonal antibody that targets the CS1 glycoprotein expressed by more than 95% of myeloma cells. Normal cells express little or no CS1.
Moreau presented results of a trial involving 73 patients with previously treated multiple myeloma. A majority of the patients had received 2 or more prior regimens, and more than 60% of the patients had received lenalidomide and bortezomib.
The results showed that 33 of 36 patients in the 10-mg group had objective responses, including 5 complete responses. In the 20-mg arm, 30 of 37 patients responded to elotuzumab. Moreau reported that 48% of the entire study population had responses that met criteria for very good partial responses.
The most common grade 3/4 adverse events were neutropenia, lymphopenia, and thrombocytopenia, each of which occurred in 16% of patients.
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