Parameswaran Hari, MD, MRCP, Discusses Lenalidomide Maintenance Outcomes in Multiple Myeloma

Parameswaran Hari, MD, MRCP, discussed the progression-free survival of patients who stopped versus continued lenalidomide maintenance therapy to treat multiple myeloma from a follow-up trial presented at the 2020 ASCO Virtual Scientific Program.

Transcription:

To our surprise, we found that the progression-free survival going forward was better if you stayed on (lenalidomide) maintenance. So, at 6 years, 79.5 maybe 80% of patients who were on (lenalidomide) continued to remain progression-free and alive. On the other arm, the people who stopped (lenalidomide), only 61%, so there’s a pretty dramatic drop off in the number of patients who progressed when they stopped (lenalidomide). This actually leads us to the conclusion that we have not been able to identify a point at which it is completely safe to stop (lenalidomide) maintenance even if you are progression-free at 3 years.

I think the main takeaway is that just being progression-free at 3 years is not good enough to stop (lenalidomide). Unless you can do some other additional studies, we have no data by which we can tell somebody to stop (lenalidomide) at this point because they have easily a 20%-plus chance-at least a 40% chance of relapsing within the next 3 years.