Dr. Ghosh on the Safety Data Seen With Liso-cel in LBCL

Nilanjan Ghosh, MD, PhD, director, Lymphoma Program, Levine Cancer Institute, discusses the low toxicity levels with lisocabtagene maraleucel (liso-cel; Breyanzi) that were seen in patients with relapsed/refractory LBCL in the phase 3 TRANSFORM trial (NCT03575351).

On June 24, 2022, the FDA approved liso-cel as a second-line treatment in patients with relapsed/refractory LBCL.

The incidence and severity of cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and neurologic events, adverse effects (AEs) that are typical of all CAR T-cell therapies, are lower with liso-cel treatment, as seen in the TRANSFORM study, emphasizing findings from the phase 2 TRANSCEND-PILOT-017006 trial (NCT03483103), Ghosh says. In TRANSFORM, most of the patients who experienced CRS had grade 1 effects, and a small percentage had grade 3 effects, with no incidences of grade 4 effects, Ghosh notes.

Similarly, regarding patients who experienced neurotoxicity, most had grade 1 or 2 effects, with a low incidence of grade 3 effects, Ghosh continues. The number of patients who used tocilizumab (Actemra) or steroids to mitigate AEs was also low, Ghosh concludes.