Key clinical point: Ibrutinib therapy was well tolerated and showed the potential to improve tumor response of patients with non-germinal center B-cell like DLBCL.

Major finding: The pooled overall response, complete response, and partial response were 57.9%, 35.0%, and 20.1%, respectively.

Study details: Meta-analysis of 13 studies comprising 1445 DLBCL patients.

Disclosures: The study was supported by the Beijing Municipal Natural Science Foundation and the authors reported having no competing interests.

Commentary

“Relapsed or refractory patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) have poor outcomes. These patients have typically received multiple lines of chemotherapy. Novel treatment strategies are needed to improve their outcomes. Ibrutinib is a Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitor (BTK) which has shown efficacy in the non-germinal center B-cell (non-GCB) subtype of DLBCL. Drs. Hou et al report the results of 13 studies of ibrutinib in 1,445 patients with DLBCL. The authors found favorable outcomes with this targeted oral agent; the overall response rate was 57.9%. The median progression free survival was 4.54 months. Combination strategies that include BTK inhibitors may result in more durable responses.”

Sarah Rutherford, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine