[Beacon Staff]

Major studies published on Revlimid maintenance therapy

by Beacon Staff on Wed May 09, 2012 8:31 pm

The prestigious New England Journal of Medicine will be publishing three articles in its newest issue tomorrow that summarize the results of the three major clinical trials that have been investigating Revlimid maintenance therapy.

As all of you might expect, The Beacon will soon be publishing a summary of the findings in those papers. It is worth pointing out now, however, that the results will not be particularly new to readers who have been following the Beacon's coverage of the issue over the past year or two.

All three studies show conclusively that maintenance therapy with Revlimid delays disease progression. Patients in the study who received Revlimid maintenance therapy had a significantly longer time to relapse compared to the myeloma patients who were on the placebo treatment (i.e., did not get Revlimid maintenance therapy).

But the results are a lot less clear when the focus turns to overall survival -- not just "progression free survival". Only one of the studies shows a statistically significant overall survival benefit to Revlimid maintenance therapy. The other two do not.

Furthermore, all three studies show that patients who were on Revlimid maintenance therapy had a significantly higher risk of developing a second cancer in addition to myeloma.

So -- as has been the case since the results of these trials started being presented -- the jury is not yet in on the issue of whether patients should be put on to Revlimid maintenance therapy after their initial treatment.

For a list of all the Beacon's articles on the issue of maintenance therapy -- whether with Revlimid or with other myeloma treatments -- follow this link:

https://myelomabeacon.org/tag/maintenance-therapy/

For a very thorough review of the three new publications and the editorial that will be published to accompany them, see this article:at OncologyReport.com: http://bit.ly/JvduMT .

[suzierose]

Re: Major studies published on Revlimid maintenance therapy

by suzierose on Wed May 09, 2012 9:15 pm

Does the review include the data from MM020?

[Mark]

Re: Major studies published on Revlimid maintenance therapy

by Mark on Wed May 09, 2012 9:26 pm

Here are the links to the studies I believe the Beacon Staff is referring to.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1112704

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1114083

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1114138

[Beacon Staff]

Re: Major studies published on Revlimid maintenance therapy

by Beacon Staff on Wed May 09, 2012 9:45 pm

Thanks, Mark.

Here is a link to the editorial that accompanies the articles:

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe1202819

The editorial has a great title, by the way: "Lenalidomide in Myeloma -- A High Maintenance Friend".

Suzierose - No, data from the MM-020 trial are not covered by any of three new articles. The first data from that trial are not expected to be made public until the second half of this year.

[Ron Harvot]

Re: Major studies published on Revlimid maintenance therapy

by Ron Harvot on Sat May 12, 2012 10:15 pm

The studies focused on a single agent - Revlimid as maintenance therapy. However, many oncologists, including mine, use mutliple agents combining Revlimid with Velcade and Dex.
The logic is that the disease finds it harder to resist the 3 drug combo effect. I wonder if any studies have been done with this combo as maintenance?

Ron