Adcetris Plus AVD Promising in Newly Diagnosed Hodgkin's Patients

A small phase I study suggests that adding Adcetris to AVD chemotherapy and removing the radiation aspect could be just as effective in treating newly diagnosed Hodgkin's patient.

Anas Younes, MD, chief of the Lymphoma Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and colleagues, carried out a phase I, single-arm, open label, dose-escalation trial among patients with stage II to stage IV newly diagnosed Hodgkin lymphoma would benefit from receiving Adcetris (brentuximab vedotin) the antibody-drug conjugate containing an anti-CD30 monoclonal antibody, in combination with either ABVD or AVD. They wanted to know whether combining the antibody-drug conjugate with the standard of care might reduce the number of chemotherapy cycles needed to be effective as a treatment for this patient population.

They recruited 51 patients. Results indicate that in the Adcetris plus ABVD arm, 95 percent of patient achieved complete remissions, and in the Adcetris plus AVD arm, 96 percent of patients achieved complete remission.

Removing the radiation aspect from standard treatment appeared to be of no consequence when Adcetris was added to chemotherapy, leading researchers to begin a phase III trial of Adcetris plus AVD in newly diagnosed Hodgkin's patients.

This could spare future patients the longterm side effect of receiving radiation therapy.

The major drawback from the study was that nearly half the patients in the Adcetris plus ABVD arm experienced serious lung toxicities.

Their findings were published in the journal Lancet Oncology.

Source: OncLive