Dr. Kay Discusses the Role of Acalabrutinib in CLL

Neil E. Kay, MD, professor of medicine, Mayo Clinic, discusses the role of acalabrutinib in the treatment of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

The Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor acalabrutinib (Calquence) works the same mechanism as ibrutinib (Imbruvica), but has less off-target effects in terms of enzyme targets, says Kay. This means that the toxicity profile of acalabrutinib may be less in some patients than if they were treated with ibrutinib.

Although effective, the major issue with ibrutinib has been the chronic low-grade toxicities such as arthralgia, diarrhea, hypertension, and rash, are problematic for patients. Kay says that many of these toxicities result in patients having to stop treatment with ibrutinib. Acalabrutinib may be a good alternative for these patients.