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Shaji K. Kumar, MD
Prashant Kapoor, MD, FACP
Shaji K. Kumar, MD
Prashant Kapoor, MD, FACP
Posted: Friday, April 8, 2022
According to a prespecified updated analysis of overall survival at 24 months after the primary analysis of the phase III ICARIA-MM study, presented in The Lancet Oncology, the addition of isatuximab to pomalidomide plus dexamethasone in the treatment of relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma may offer a standard-of-care therapy for this patient population. Adding the monoclonal antibody to this regimen, concluded Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at the Harvard Medical School, Boston, and colleagues, resulted in an almost 7-month difference in median overall survival compared with treatment using pomalidomide plus dexamethasone alone.
“The updated results of this large, international, multicentre study solidify the position of isatuximab/pomalidomide/dexamethasone combination therapy as an efficacious and well-tolerated standard of care for patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma,” the authors concluded.
In this trial, the authors assigned 307 patients with relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma who had received at least two previous lines of therapy to receive isatuximab with pomalidomide plus dexamethasone (154 patients) or pomalidomide plus dexamethasone alone (153 patients). After a median follow-up of 35.3 months, the median overall survival for those treated with isatuximab was 24.6 months, compared with 17.7 months for those patients who were not. Among the patients treated with isatuximab, 111 (73%) had serious treatment-emergent adverse events, compared with 90 patients (60%) in the other group. Two treatment-related deaths occurred in both treatment cohorts.
The most common grade 3 or worse treatment-emergent adverse events for those who received isatuximab were neutropenia (76 patients), pneumonia (35 patients), and thrombocytopenia (20 patients). Those same common grade 3 or worse treatment-emergent adverse events were reported in 52, 31, and 18 patients, respectively, of those who received pomalidomide plus dexamethasone alone.
Disclosure: For a full disclosure of the study authors, visit thelancet.com.
