Dr Abramson on the Efficacy of Second-line Liso-cel Vs SOC in Relapsed/Refractory LBCL

Jeremy Abramson, MD, director, Jon and Jo Ann Hagler Center for Lymphoma, Massachusetts General Hospital, associate professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School, discusses the efficacy data of second-line lisocabtagene maraleucel (liso-cel; Breyanzi) vs standard-of-care (SOC) salvage chemotherapy followed by autologous stem cell transplant from the phase 3 TRANSFORM trial (NCT03575351) done in patients with relapsed/refractory large B-cell lymphoma (LBCL).

A preliminary analysis of the trial was presented at the 2022 ASH Annual Meeting. At a median follow-up of 17.5 months, the trial met its primary end point for event-free survival, according to Abramson. The median EFS was not reached (NR) in the liso-cel arm compared with 2.4 months for SOC. Notably, the 18-month EFS rates were 52.6% and 20.8% for liso-cel and SOC, respectively, Abramson adds.

Furthermore, liso-cel elicited a complete response rate of 74% vs 43% with SOC, Abramson says. The median progression-free survival with liso-cel was NR vs 6.2 months with SOC. Liso-cel also resulted in a numerical improvement in overall survival (OS) compared with SOC (NR vs 29.9 months), although these data were not statistically significant, Abramson notes.

Since patients from the SOC arm were permitted to cross over to the liso-cel arm, investigators conducted a supportive OS analysis to account for patient crossover, Abramson adds. Data from the supportive analysis showed a significant improvement for OS with liso-cel vs SOC, with a stratified hazard ratio of 0.415, Abramson says. The analysis provided further evidence of the benefit of liso-cel compared with SOC in the second-line treatment of patients with LBCL, Abramson concludes.