Dr. Wang Discusses New Agents in the Field of MCL

Michael Wang, MD, professor in the Department of Lymphoma and Myeloma at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses new agents in the field of mantle cell lymphoma (MCL).

Following the 2017 approval of acalabrutinib (Calquence) for the treatment of patients with MCL following 1 prior therapy, more agents are coming down the pike, Wang says.

The first of the new agents is venetoclax (Venclexta), which has been studied in a phase I trial of patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Patients with MCL on this study had the highest overall response rate (ORR), complete response rate, and second-highest partial response rate of all 6 subgroups of lymphoma on the study.

Cellular therapy is also making its way into the landscape, although it is still early to report data, Wang notes. The ZUMA-2 study (NCT02601313) is currently evaluating the anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta) in patients with MCL who no longer respond to treatment. Eligibility criteria for this study include pathologically confirmed relapsed/refractory MCL and an ECOG performance score ≤1. Moreover, the patient cannot have received more than 5 prior therapies. The primary endpoint of this study is ORR, with secondary endpoints of duration of response, overall survival, progression-free survival, and safety.