• Media type: E-Article
  • Title: Estimates of Survival and Life Expectancy with Tafasitamab Plus Lenalidomide in the L-Mind Study Compared with Real-World Standard-of-Care for Patients with Relapsed/Refractory Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma
  • Contributor: Duell, Johannes; Dreyling, Martin; Gaidano, Gianluca; Kalakonda, Nagesh; Gonzalez Barca, Eva Maria; Liberati, Anna Marina; Nagy, Zsolt; Moik, Daniel; Vukcevic, Mirko; Amin, Aasim; Bakuli, Abhishek
  • imprint: American Society of Hematology, 2023
  • Published in: Blood
  • Language: English
  • DOI: 10.1182/blood-2023-174043
  • ISSN: 1528-0020; 0006-4971
  • Keywords: Cell Biology ; Hematology ; Immunology ; Biochemistry
  • Origination:
  • Footnote:
  • Description: <jats:title /> <jats:p>Background</jats:p> <jats:p>The presence of stable plateaus in Kaplan-Meier (KM) survival analyses of clinical trials with ≥5 years of median follow-up raises the issue of the curative potential of immunotherapies for patients with relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (R/R DLBCL). Mixture cure models (MCM), unlike standard survival analyses, stratify study populations into long-term survivors (LTS) and non-LTS based on statistical modeling approaches. LTS are assumed to not experience a disease-related event (termed “cured” in only a statistical sense) and are assumed to have an all-cause mortality of the age- and gender-matched general populace. Non-LTS experience events based on the outcomes of the underlying study. Based on these analyses, life expectancies for the combined (LTS and non-LTS) study population are estimable (Felizzi F et al. 2021).</jats:p> <jats:p>The final 5-year results of the Phase II L-MIND study (NCT02399085; Duell J et al. 2023) of tafasitamab + lenalidomide (LEN) in patients with R/R DLBCL identified an LTS population, making the study data suitable for MCM analysis. For contextualization, patients from the retrospective, observational RE-MIND2 study (NCT04697160; Nowakowski G et al. 2022; Nowakowski G et al. 2023) who were treated with a wide variety of systemic therapies including polatuzumab vedotin / bendamustine / rituximab (pola-BR) were matched to the L-MIND population. We used various MCM analyses to estimate the proportion of LTS and overall life expectancy in patients from L-MIND compared with matched RE-MIND2 cohorts.</jats:p> <jats:p>Methods</jats:p> <jats:p>Patients from the full analysis set (FAS) from L-MIND (n=80) were 1:1 matched without replacement with a RE-MIND2 comparator cohort, based on 9 covariates originally defined in the RE-MIND2 study, generating 76 matched pairs (M_popn). Two subsets of patients from L-MIND were also defined: those with only one prior line of therapy (pLoT; 1:1 matched to a corresponding RE-MIND2 cohort) generating 39 matched pairs; and those experiencing a response to therapy (non-matched subsets from the 1:1 matched populations). KM curves for the comparisons are displayed, and a semi-parametric MCM was used to estimate the proportion of LTS and combined life expectancy (accounting for LTS and non-LTS) within each population (Cai C et al. 2021; Gressani O et al. 2022). The life expectancy of the general population was estimated using data from the US National Vital Statistics System. Additional MCMs were generated for sensitivity analyses.</jats:p> <jats:p>Results</jats:p> <jats:p>KM curves show improved survival outcomes in the L-MIND M_popn treated with tafasitamab + LEN with up to 5 years of follow-up compared with RE-MIND2 M_popn receiving standard-of-care systemic therapies in an observational setting( Figure 1). The LTS proportion of the L-MIND M_popn was estimated as 40%, and the combined life expectancy was 7.27 years (95% confidence interval [CI]: 5.56-8.93 years). By comparison, the RE-MIND2 M_popn had a LTS proportion and a combined life expectancy of 13% and 2.93 years (CI: 1.68-4.86 years), respectively. The probability of survival among patients with response to therapy in L-MIND or in the observational RE-MIND2 setting is shown in Figure 2. In patients with an objective response in L-MIND M_popn, the LTS proportion was estimated as 59%, with a combined life expectancy of 9.97 years (CI: 7.69-11.79 years). For the subset of patients with response in RE-MIND2 M_popn, the LTS proportion and combined life expectancy were 18% and 3.73 years (CI: 1.99-6.51 years), respectively. Half of the patients in L-MIND received tafasitamab + LEN as second-line therapy; the LTS proportion in this subset was 51%, with a combined life expectancy of 8.24 years (CI: 5.96-10.21 years). Additional subgroup and sensitivity analyses will be presented later.</jats:p> <jats:p>Conclusions</jats:p> <jats:p>The MCM analysis of 5-year data from the L-MIND study suggests that treatment with tafasitamab + LEN tripled the proportion of LTS (40%) when compared with matched real-world patient cohorts receiving systemic therapies (13% LTS). Among patients responding to treatment, the proportion of LTS increased to 59% for those receiving tafasitamab + LEN, compared with 18% for other systemic treatment. The increases in LTS proportion resulted in substantial increases in estimates of life expectancy; these exploratory data warrant further examination in larger patient cohorts.</jats:p>