Tisa-Cel Shows Efficacy and Durability in R/R Follicular Lymphoma

Stephen Schuster, MD, professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, discussed findings from the 3-year follow-up of the phase 2 ELARA trial (NCT03568461) of tisagenlecleucel (tisa-cel, Kymriah) for the treatment of patients with relapsed/refractory follicular lymphoma. According to the presentation at the 2023 ASH Annual Meeting, patients in this intent-to-treat group maintained durable, lasting responses 3 years after tisa-cel infusion, including patients in high-risk subgroups.

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0:09 | Previously, we had done work in more aggressive lymphomas with [tisa-cel] with excellent results. It was FDA-approved, and [we] next moved on to follicular lymphoma, which is the second most common B cell lymphoma after the aggressive large cell lymphoma cohort. We had excellent results, probably even better overall than we got with the aggressive lymphomas. Not surprisingly, despite the fact that these were highly pretreated patients, very high response rate, 68% complete responses. In fact, those responses appeared very, very durable. Certainly for the patients that achieved complete response, there's been no recurrence of disease or deaths. The progression-free [survival] is very, very high, nowhere near the median, up above 70%. But for all the patients treated on the trial , in partial responders and complete responders together, I think we still haven't reached the median in 3 years, about 53%, just above.

1:01 | So some of the correlates, the immune fitness correlates, we're beginning to dive into now and not surprisingly, [we are seeing] T cells with more of a capacity to survive longer and proliferate more and differentiate to killer cells for longer periods of time. Even the patients who have the poor prognostic features and the unfit do much better than what we had before. We had to start studying it in greater detail because we want to make it better for everyone. Even as it stands in this at this point in time, it's better than what we had prior to it.