Loretta Nastoupil, MD, Shares TRANSFORM Subgroup Analyses

Loretta Nastoupil, MD, of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, speaks with Chadi Nabhan, MD, MBA, FACP, about research she presented during the 2023 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting.

Dr. Nasutopil and colleagues conducted subgroup analyses of the phase III TRANSFORM study, which compared lisocabtagene maraleucel with standard of care as a second-line therapy in patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma (LBCL).

The subgroup analyses compared outcomes of patients who had primary refractory LBCL with outcomes of those who had early relapsed LBCL.

“Patients who are primary refractory had less favorable outcomes, but liso-cel still well outperformed the standard of care,” Dr. Nastoupil said. “Actually, what’s really intriguing is when there is a little bit later relapse, the outcomes with liso-cel were really quite phenomenal. “

Dr. Nastopil said the results of the study are “really encouraging” for the use of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy in these patients.

“There’s a role for CAR-T in early relapse patients,” she said. “It works really well for those who are primary refractory. It works even better for those that are not quite as refractory. It’s an interesting exploration with a large randomized phase III.”