Response to Brentuximab Vedotin and Quality of Life in Patients with Relapsed/Refractory Hodgkin Lymphoma (RR HL) in the Real World Setting

There is a continued unmet medical need in pts with relapsed/refractory Hodgkin's lymphoma (RR HL). Curing HL pts who have refractory disease after salvage chemotherapy, who relapse after ASCT, or those who are not candidates for ASCT, remains a clinical challenge due to limited effective treatments. There are data available indicating that brentuximab vedotin (BV) brings considerable promise for the treatment of pts with RR HL. Information about BV treatment effectiveness and tolerability both from physician's and patient's perspective is worthwhile in this difficult patient population. We aimed to evaluate clinical and patient-reported outcomes in RR HL patients receiving BV as >2nd treatment line. Here we report the outcomes with respect to clinical response, tolerability, quality of life (QoL) and symptoms after 3 mos of BV treatment. The total number of pts to be included in the multicenter observational real-world study is 70 pts with RR HL who received BV 1.8 mg/kg q3w till disease progression, intolerance toxicity of BV or refusal. Treatment response was assessed using RECIST criteria v. 1.0. Adverse events (AEs) were assessed in accordance with NCI CTCAE v. 4.03. For QoL assessment pts filled out RAND SF-36, for symptom assessment - ESAS questionnaire; also pts filled out PGIC scale for self-assessment of changes in their health. For QoL analysis paired t-test, Mann-Whitney test, Wilcoxon test and χ2 were used. The analysis was performed in the group of 55 pts RR HL (median age - 28 years, range 18-67, 54.5% males) who were involved in the study: 63.6% pts had advanced stage (III-IV) at diagnosis; ≥50% pts had B-symptoms (58.2%); 82% pts - ECOG 0-1. All the pts received a median of 3 previous treatment lines; among them 14 pts (25.5%) failed to ASCT in the past; half of pts were primary chemotherapy resistant (49%). Before BV treatment start QoL was dramatically worsened for all SF-36 scales (p70% pts) symptoms were drowsiness, tiredness, anxiety, and worse wellbeing. More than half pts had moderate-to-severe drowsiness, tiredness, depression, lack of appetite and worsened wellbeing before BV treatment start. After 3 mos of BV treatment objective response was registered in 55% pts with 27.5% complete response. Adverse events of grade I-II were reported in 8 pts (20%) and were consistent with known toxicities. Most common adverse events (≥10%) w