Imbruvica Shows Promise as Maintenance Therapy for Patients With MCL

Maintenance therapy with Imbruvica (ibrutinib) appeared to be a feasible option for patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), according to Dr. Reem Karmali.

At the 2019 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, she discusses the study findings and the use of targeted therapies to treat patients with MCL.

“The study shows the toxicity is manageable and in line with what one would expect with (Imbruvica). The key, I think, is going to be longer term follow-up, as well as MRD (minimal residual disease) status in our patients,” said Karmali. “…We hope to show that there’s a benefit to (Imbruvica) maintenance by correlating MRD status with progression-free survival and overall survival. If we can show this, I think it will make the argument that (Imbruvica) maintenance is clinically relevant and ought to be explored further.”