Blood Cancer Journal (Jun 2021)

KarMMa-RW: comparison of idecabtagene vicleucel with real-world outcomes in relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma

  • Sundar Jagannath,
  • Yi Lin,
  • Hartmut Goldschmidt,
  • Donna Reece,
  • Ajay Nooka,
  • Alicia Senin,
  • Paula Rodriguez-Otero,
  • Ray Powles,
  • Kosei Matsue,
  • Nina Shah,
  • Larry D. Anderson,
  • Matthew Streetly,
  • Kimberly Wilson,
  • Hoa Van Le,
  • Arlene S. Swern,
  • Amit Agarwal,
  • David S. Siegel

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41408-021-00507-2
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 6
pp. 1 – 9

Abstract

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Abstract Patients with relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) who are triple-class exposed (to an immunomodulatory agent, proteasome inhibitor, and anti-CD38 antibody) have limited treatment options and there is no standard of care. Idecabtagene vicleucel (ide-cel, bb2121), a BCMA-directed CAR T-cell therapy, demonstrated efficacy in triple-class exposed RRMM patients in the KarMMa trial (NCT03361748). In this retrospective study (KarMMa-RW), patient-level data from triple-class exposed RRMM patients were merged into a single data model and compared with KarMMa using trimmed stabilized inverse probability of treatment weighting. Endpoints included overall response rate (ORR; primary), rate of very good partial response or better (≥VGPR), progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS). Of 1949 real-world triple-class exposed RRMM patients, 190 received subsequent (index) line of therapy and met KarMMa eligibility criteria (Eligible RRMM cohort). With a median follow-up of 13.3 months in KarMMa and 10.2 months in Eligible RRMM, ORR, and ≥VGPR were significantly improved in KarMMa versus Eligible RRMM (ORR, 76.4% vs 32.2%; ≥VGPR, 57.9% vs 13.7%; both P < 0.0001) as were PFS (11.6 vs 3.5 months; P = 0.0004) and OS (20.2 vs 14.7 months; P = 0.0006). This study demonstrated that ide-cel significantly improved responses and survival compared with currently available therapies in triple-class exposed RRMM.