Dr. Dean on FDA Approved Drugs for Patients With Relapsed MCL

Robert Dean, MD, staff physician, Cleveland Clinic, discusses drugs that have been approved by the FDA for the treatment of patients with relapsed mantle cell lymphoma (MCL).

Bortezomib (Velcade) and lenalidomide (Revlimid) received approval in the United States, and temsirolimus (Torisel) was approved in Europe, says Dean. More recently, the BTK inhibitors ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and acalabrutinib (Calquence) were also granted approvals in the United States.

Both ibrutinib and acalabrutinib seem to show more activity in patients with MCL compared with earlier drugs that were approved in the relapsed setting, says Dean. There is a slightly higher rate of significant adverse events with ibrutinib, particularly issues associated with atrial fibrillation and bleeding. Most of these toxicities are minor but can be clinically serious. Dean adds that those 2 types of toxicities are relatively rare with acalabrutinib.