Effectiveness of Lenalidomide in Patients with Mantle Cell Lymphoma Who Relapsed/Progressed after or Were Refractory/Intolerant to Ibrutinib: The MCL-004 Study

Background: Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) remains challenging particularly in the relapsed/refractory setting, where patients often show chemoresistance. Novel molecular-based therapies have shown impressive and durable activity in that setting, although primary and acquired resistance remains problematic. A recent retrospective series of 114 patients who had failed ibrutinib (median of 4.7 month exposure) showed very short median overall survival of 2.9 months after ibrutinib cessation (Martin et al. Blood 2015). Here we report the results from the observationalMCL-004 study investigating outcomes of patients treated with lenalidomide (an IMiD® immunomodulatory agent) after failing ibrutinib; patients were either relapsed, progressed, refractory, or intolerant to ibrutinib. The objective here is to evaluate the clinical effectiveness of lenalidomide monotherapy or a lenalidomide-containing regimen in relapsed/refractory MCL after ibrutinib failure or intolerance.

Methods: MCL-004 is a multicenter study in patients with MCL who relapsed/progressed after or were refractory/intolerant to ibrutinib, and were subsequently treated with lenalidomide. With patient informed consent, data were collected retrospectively from patients who, after their disease failed to respond to ibrutinib, received lenalidomide-based therapy from March 1, 2009 to June 9, 2015. The primary endpoint was investigator-assessed overall response rate (ORR) based on 2007 International Working Group criteria, with required patient monitoring and routine imaging.

Results: Thirty patients were enrolled at 7 US sites and 1 EU site, including patients receiving lenalidomide monotherapy (n=8), lenalidomide + rituximab (n=8), and lenalidomide + other treatment (n=14). Lenalidomide + other treatment included combination with rituximab, carfilzomib, and dexamethasone (n=3); other combinations were given in ≤2 patients. Patients had a median age of 69 years (range, 50-84), and median time from last dose of ibrutinib to first dose of lenalidomide was 1.3 weeks (range, 0.1-21.7). All patients received ≥2 prior lines of therapy, and 83% received ≥3 prior therapies (median prior therapies, 3.5; range, 2-8). With prior ibrutinib, the best responses achieved were 10% complete response (CR), 43% partial response (PR), 3% stable disease, 40% relapse/progressive disease (PD), and 3% unknown. Primary reasons for ibrutinib discontinuation were 50% relapse/PD, 40% refractory, and 10% intolerance. Patients received a median of 2 cycles (range, 1-11) of lenalidomide-based treatment. Eight patients' disease responded (4 CR, 4 PR), resulting in an ORR of 27% (95% CI, 12%-46%). Five of 8 maintained their response at data cut-off (3 CR, 2 PR). ORR was similar for patients with relapse/PD vs. those refractory to ibrutinib (29% vs. 33%, respectively). Median duration of response (DOR) was 18 weeks (95% CI, 2.9-25+) for all patients. Median DOR was not reached in patients who previously relapsed/progressed with ibrutinib compared with a median of 11 weeks for those whose disease was refractory to ibrutinib. Most common treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) were 33% fatigue; 27% nausea; and 23% each dyspnea, neutropenia, dizziness, or rash. In general, TEAEs were less common with lenalidomide monotherapy. The most frequently reported serious AEs were pneumonia, dyspnea, deep vein thrombosis, hypotension, and acute kidney injury (7% each). At data cutoff, 15 patients (50%) had died, mostly due to MCL and none due to second primary malignancy.

Conclusions: Most patients received ≥3 prior lines of treatment, and median time from last dose of ibrutinib to first dose of lenalidomide was short. Lenalidomide-based treatment showed clinical activity in this difficult-to-treat patient population, including 27% ORR and 13% CR. No new safety signals for lenalidomide were identified. Overall, our results show that lenalidomide is active in a selected group of patients with relapsed/refractory MCL that previously failed ibrutinib.