Dr. Ritchie on the Rationale of the AIM Trial in Relapsed/Refractory MCL

David Ritchie, MD, PhD, hematologist, head of allogenic stem cell transplantation, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, discusses the rationale of the AIM trial in relapse/refractory mantle cell lymphoma (MCL).

The patient population of the phase II AIM trial (NCT02471391) comprises those who either failed to respond to initial chemotherapy or had short remissions after treatment. Many of these patients had gone through intensive chemotherapy, including autologous stem cell transplantation. These are patients who had no other therapeutic options, said Ritchie.

The primary driver of the study was to explore the safety and efficacy of the combination of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and venetoclax (Venclexta). It is important to have comprehensive biomarker specimens as a part of the study, which allows researchers to look at this immunological reconstitution, as well as look for those biomarkers in the compliment species, concludes Ritchie.