PTCL subtypes
Meeting attendees also discussed the value of BV in different PTCL subtypes.
At the request of European regulatory agencies, ECHELON-2 was largely focused on patients with sALCL. They made up 70% of the total trial population, while 16% of patients had PTCL-NOS, 12% had AITL, and a small number of patients had other subtypes. These numbers meant ECHELON-2 was not powered to determine differences in OS or PFS in non-sALCL subtypes.
As a result, some attendees expressed concerns about using BV-CHP to treat PTCL-NOS or AITL. They argued that it wasn’t clear whether patients with these subtypes would derive more benefit from BV-CHP, CHOP, or CHOP plus etoposide (CHOEP).
Other attendees said they would feel comfortable using BV-CHP in patients with PTCL-NOS or AITL based on ECHELON-2 results.
CHOP vs. CHOEP
The use of CHOP in ECHELON-2 was another point of discussion. Some attendees said CHOEP should have been used as the comparator instead.
A few individuals mentioned retrospective data suggesting CHOEP may confer a benefit over CHOP in PTCL (Blood. 2010 Nov 4;116[18]:3418-25).
Marek Trneny, MD, of Charles University General Hospital in Prague, referenced new data from the Czech National Lymphoma Registry, which showed that patients newly diagnosed with PTCL had superior PFS and OS when they received CHOEP rather than CHOP.
Based on these findings, Dr. Trneny said he would consider treating CD30-positive PTCL patients with CHOEP plus BV rather than BV-CHP.
However, most other attendees said they would not consider adding BV to CHOEP due to the absence of clinical trial data supporting this approach.
Some attendees did say they would use CHOEP instead of BV-CHP, particularly in patients with PTCL-NOS or AITL and in patients with CD30 expression below 10%.
ECHELON-2 was funded by Seattle Genetics and Millennium Pharmaceuticals, a wholly owned subsidiary of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company.
Dr. O’Connor and Dr. Shustov were investigators on ECHELON-2. Dr. O’Connor is a cochair of the T-cell Lymphoma Forum. The T-cell Lymphoma Forum is organized by Jonathan Wood & Associates, which is owned by the same company as this news organization.