Real-World Use of Tafasitamab Supports Clinical Benefit in Relapsed, Refractory DLBCL

A recent study of the real-world effectiveness of tafasitamab for relapsed and refractory diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) supported the findings of clinical benefit of the drug in this patient population, according to a poster presentation at the 66th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting & Exposition.

Tafasitamab is a CD19-targeting immunotherapy used in combination with lenalidomide for treatment of relapsed and refractory DLBCL in patients who are not eligible for autologous stem cell transplantation.

At the meeting, Kimberly Saverno, PhD, of Incyte Corporation, Wilmington, Delaware, and colleagues presented data examining the use of tafasitamab in the community practice setting. The retrospective study used physician-abstracted medical chart review data, provided by 23 physicians from Cardinal Health’s Oncology Provider Extended Network. Patients included US adults who began treatment with tafasitamab with or without lenalidomide on or after October 21, 2020.

Two different data collection periods were used, and the median follow-up time from initiation was 14.7 months. Of the 181 patients included, 71% had discontinued treatment with tafasitamab. The most common reason for discontinuation was disease progression (71%). Of the 106 patients that were still alive, half were receiving tafasitamab.

About one-quarter (23.2%) of patients had a real-world complete response and half (50.3%) had a real-world partial response as their best response. The real-world overall response rate was 73.5%. Among responders, the median duration of response was 9.6 months: 19.2 months among those with a complete response and 8.5 months among those with a partial response. Median progression-free survival (PFS) was 11.3 months with a median overall survival of 24.8 months from treatment initiation.

The multivariable models of real-world overall survival and real-world PFS suggest that tafasitamab provides the greatest benefit when it is used as second-line therapy compared with later lines of therapy, the researchers concluded.

According to the poster, the data should be considered with certain limitations in mind. These include biases introduced by missing data or underreported data and the fact that the data were from only a limited number of community oncologists.

Reference

Saverno K, Nastoupil L, Feinberg B, et al. Real-world effectiveness of tafasitamab (Tafa) for the treatment of relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (R/R DLBCL) in the United States. Abstract #2375. Presented at the 66th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting & Exposition; December 7-10, 2024; San Diego, California.