Site Editor
Jeremy S. Abramson, MD, MMSc
Jeremy S. Abramson, MD, MMSc
Posted: Tuesday, January 21, 2025
The use of targeted treatment has been shown in clinical trials to have superior effects on overall survival in patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) than chemoimmunotherapy alone; however, the impact of these treatments in the real world is still unknown. A presentation at the 2024 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition (Abstract 4619) highlighted findings following a retrospective observational study that examined overall survival with chemoimmunotherapy vs Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitors in this patient population. Lydia Scarfo, MD, of the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy, and colleagues found that patients given BTK inhibitors had better overall survival than those given chemoimmunotherapy alone.
A total of 1,877 patients from 38 centers across the Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom were eligible for this study. The patients received second-line treatment for CLL between 2010 and 2019 and were allocated to two groups (chemoimmunotherapy-era and BTK inhibitor–era), according to the actual use of BTK inhibitors in relapsed or refractory settings in each country. Overall survival was examined from the initial date of second-line treatment between the two groups, and analyses were adjusted for age at second-line treatment through propensity score matching.
Patients in the BTK inhibitor–era group had a better overall survival than did those in the chemoimmunotherapy-era group (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.74, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.61–0.91, P = .003). Further, this difference was even more pronounced when comparing overall survival using propensity score matching (HR = 0.71, 95% CI = 0.58–0.88, P = .001). Risk factor assessments revealed that the only protective factor against death was treatment with BTK inhibitors in the relapsed or refractory setting (HR = 0.5, 95% CI = 0.28–0.88, P = .017).
Disclosure: For full disclosures of the study authors, visit ash.com.
2024 ASH Annual Meeting & Exposition
