On June 21st, Targeted Oncology posted the results from a phase 2 clinical trial for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).
The trial examined the effects of combing two therapies–obinutuzumab and bendamustine. The researchers looked at both minimal residual disease (MRD) negativity and complete response (CR)–and found high rates for both. Additionally, no surprises about safety occurred.
There are still debates on whether or not treatments like the one analyzed in this trial, or basic chemotherapy is the best option for CLL patients.
The director for the medical arm of hematology research at the US Oncology Network, Jeff Sharman, says that chemotherapy may still work best for patients who have a mutation. For others, different treatments should still be considered. What’s unique about the treatments in the above study, is that they are expected to produce more long-term results with fewer side effects than other medications.
Other combined medications have been tried before but the side effects that they produced often didn’t warrant their continuation. There’s hope that this new combination will not produce those adverse effects. The phase 2 trial only recorded safety complications which were already predicted to occur, fostering the hope of the combinations future success.
You can read more about this specific study here. The documentation on Targeted Oncology provides the exact percentages of the trial’s results.
Fingers are crossed that this leads to further investigation for combining obinutuzumab and bendamustine for chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients, and perhaps sparks the innovation of other potential drug combinations.
