New Treatment Regimen Examined in POLARIX Trial for Patients With DLBCL

Matthew J. Matasar, MD, chief of the Medical Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Bergen, discusses how updates in the diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) field have led to improved quality of life in patients.

While the rituximab (Rituxan), cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, prednisone (R-CHOP) regimen is known to be the standard frontline treatment for this patient population, experts like Matasar are always wanting to improve on the combination and see if any other standard of care option could be better.

The ongoing POLARIX trial (NCT03274492) looks to examine polatuzumab vedotin (Polivy) with rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin and prednisone (Pola-R-CHP) and compare it to R-CHOP therapy in patients with previously untreated DLBCL. While there has yet to be data reported regarding the overall survival differences for patients using Pola-R-CHP, there was a 7% improvement in progression-free survival in patients with higher risk, DLBCL.

Transcription:

0:08 | ​​There’s been ongoing efforts over the past decades to try to improve our treatment of patients with a new diagnosis of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. There has been a lot of trouble improving beyond the standard of care of R-CHOP chemo immunotherapy. Although there have been many efforts over these years to try to do so, they have been unsuccessful. We now have our first positive clinical trial for patients with a new diagnosis of DLBCL in the form of the comparison of polatuzumab vedotin [Polivy] plus R-CHP chemotherapy versus R-CHOP chemotherapy, the so-called POLARIX trial.

0:50 | This was a randomized double blinded trial of the novel regimen against the R-CHOP standard of care for patients with higher risk diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. We found that indeed, inclusion of polatuzumab substitution of it for vincristine in the standard regimen led to an improvement in progression free survival of about 7% in patients with higher risk diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. This hasn’t yet translated to an overall survival difference, but a clinically and statistically significant improvement in PFS is something that's important for lymphoma specialists, oncologists, and patients to be aware of.