Dr. Perl Discusses the Impact of the ELIANA Trial

Alexander E. Perl, MD, associate professor of medicine, University of Pennsylvania, discusses the impact of the ELIANA trial in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

In August 2017, the FDA approved the chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah) for the treatment of patients up to 25 years of age with B-cell precursor ALL that is refractory or in second or later relapse. This approval was based off findings from the ELIANA trial of 63 patients who received a single dose of tisagenlecleucel. The overall remission rate was 82.5% (95% CI, 70.9-91.0) in treated subjects, and 40 patients (63%) had complete remission.

Perl says that the most exciting thing about the ELIANA trial is that this therapy can be done at any center that is properly equipped. The fact that the toxicities were uniform between the single-center data and the multi-center data was encouraging, Perl adds. There is a learning curve to CAR T-cell therapy, and physicians should refer their patients to centers that have experience administering it.