Dr. Jacobs on the Use of Ibrutinib in High-Risk Patients With CLL

Ryan W. Jacobs, MD, physician, Levine Cancer Institute, discusses the use of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) in high-risk patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

When a clinician does a work up and looks at the genes of patients with high-risk prognosis using FISH analyses and IGHV analyses, they know that these patients do worse with chemo-immunotherapy. The patients with deletion 17p, 11q, trisomy 12, and unmutated IGHV have less return on historical treatments.

However, this particular group of patients seem to show more benefit with ibrutinib. The data backing the agent seems to level the playing field, says Jacobs. The patients with 11q found by FISH seem to do just as well as the patients without 11q deletion, and the patients with unmutated IGHV seem to do just as well as the patients with an IGHV mutation.