Dr. Dimopoulos on the Safety of Zanubrutinib in Waldenström Macroglobulinemia

Meletios A. Dimopoulos, MD, professor and chairman of the Department of Clinical Therapeutics at the National and Kapodistrian University Athens School of Medicine, in Athens, Greece, discusses safety results from the randomized phase 3 ASPEN trial of zanubrutinib (Brukinsa) in patients with Waldenström macroglobulinemia presented at the 2020 European Hematology Association Congress.

In the trial, investigators discovered an advantage with the investigational, next-generation BTK inhibitor zanubrutinib compared with ibrutinib (Imbruvica) in terms of adverse events that resulted in death, discontinuation of treatment and dose reductions, says Dimopoulos. Additionally, zanubrutinib showed lower rates of atrial fibrillation, contusion, diarrhea, hypertension, muscle spasms, pneumonia, and bleeding Dimopoulos adds.

Zanubrutinib demonstrated clinically meaningful advantages in terms of safety and tolerability, Dimopoulos concludes.