Adult patients with relapsed/refractory (r/r) diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) who responded to a single infusion of tisagenlecleucel appeared to have an improved health-related quality of life (HRQoL), data from the phase 2 JULIET trial showed (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02445248). The findings were recently reported in Blood Advances.
Patients who received the CD19-directed chimeric antigen T-cell (CAR-T) therapy tisagenlecleucel during the JULIET trial were asked to complete the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Lymphoma (FACT-Lym) and Short Form-36 (SF-36) Health Survey, both of which are validated HRQoL questionnaires. These questionnaires were completed at baseline and at 4 specified time points after treatment: 3, 6, 12, and 18 months.
The study population had a median age of 56 years (range, 22-76 years) and nearly all patients (96%) received 2 or more lines of therapy. A total of 108 of 115 treated patients completed the questionnaires at baseline, and among the 108 patients, 57 went on to achieve a complete response (CR) or partial response (PR).
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The self-reported responses from the FACT-Lym questionnaire showed a “sustained” improvement at all time points compared with baseline for patients who had a CR or PR.
Responses to the SF-36 Health Survey similarly showed that patients who had a CR or PR had scores for 5 of 8 subscales that “surpassed” the minimally clinically important differences at all time points. The 5 subscales were general health, vitality, physical functioning, role-physical, and social functioning.
“These data,” the study authors wrote, “suggest that tisagenlecleucel improves HRQoL in patients with r/r DLBCL who respond to this therapy.”
Disclosure: This study was supported (and the editing of the manuscript was
Funded) by Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation. Some of the authors reported financial relationships with pharmaceutical or medical device/research companies; for a full list of disclosures, please refer to the original study.
Reference
Maziarz RT, Waller EK, Jaeger U, et al. Patient-reported long-term quality of life after tisagenlecleucel in relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Blood Adv. 2020;4(4):629-637.
