Dr. Patel on Ibrutinib in Real-World Setting Versus Clinical Trials

Krish Patel, MD, medical oncologist, Swedish Cancer Institute, discusses a study looking at the real-world benefit of BTK inhibitors in patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) versus what has been seen in clinical trials.

Exploring the potential of BTK inhibitors in MCL was a major research focus at the 2018 ASH Annual Meeting. Researchers are starting to embrace the importance of this class of drugs in the relapsed/refractory setting, Patel says. One study compared responses to ibrutinib (Imbruvica) in the real-world setting with what is typically seen in clinical trials.

Overall response rates and median progression-free survival data were comparable, he notes, suggesting that real-world clinical benefit with BTK inhibitors can mirror what is seen in clinical trials. Results also showed that in the real-world setting, discontinuation rates were higher than what had been observed in clinical studies; that was primarily driven by disease progression. Importantly, about one-quarter of patients had to stop therapy with ibrutinib due to toxicities, Patel says. This is higher than what has been reported in clinical trials with ibrutinib, so this is an interesting outcome to consider, and one that requires further evaluation.