Feasibility Study Of Adding Bortezomib to R-ICE Chemotherapy To Treat Relapsed/ Refractory Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma

Summary

Incorporation of rituximab to conventional chemotherapy (R-CHOP) has revolutionalized the frontline treatment of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), one of the commonest subtype of lymphoma. Although the majority of patients are cured, there still remains a substantial number patients (20-30%) who will relapse despite upfront R-CHOP therapy. Recent studies have informed that in the rituximab era, the ability to salvage patients with relapsed DLBCL with the conventional salvage regimens like R-ICE or R-DHAP is significantly poorer than expected. For a patients who has been exposed to rituximab in the frontline, the response rate of conventional salvage chemotherapy is now a mere 51% (Coral Study). This suggests that relapses after rituximab exposure are more severe, strongly implying the presence of rituximab-resistant disease in additional to the selection of more aggressive subtypes of DLBCL which R-CHOP may not have a significant impact on. As R-CHOP is currently the frontline standard of care, more has to be done to augment the current available salvage regimens as a response rate of 51% is unacceptable. Incorporation of agents targeting rituximab-resistance and also the more aggressive subtype of DLBCL ( ABC subtype) is prudent in the salvage regimen. Bortezomib, a targeted novel agent has potent anti-tumor effects on its own. It has also been show clinically to be able to overcome the adverse risk conferred by the ABC subtype of DLBCL. In addition, preclinical studies have also demonstrated that bortezomib may enhance the biologic activity of rituximab through upregulation of CD20, the target of rituximab. The investigators hypothesize that adding bortezomib to salvage regimen of DLBCL will be more efficacious. Increasing the response rate will then allow more eligible patients to go on to autologous stem cell transplantation. The investigators intend to test the tolerability and efficacy of the combination of bortezomib with the R-ICE regimen, and attempt to correlate responses with histopathological and gene expression studies of tumor specimens.

Timeline

Start

2010-11

Primary completion

2014-11

Completion

2014-11

Publications

• Background Gisselbrecht C, Glass B, Mounier N, Singh Gill D, Linch DC, Trneny M, Bosly A, Ketterer N, Shpilberg O, Hagberg H, Ma D, Briere J, Moskowitz CH, Schmitz N. Salvage regimens with autologous transplantation for relapsed large B-cell lymphoma in the rituximab era. J Clin Oncol. 2010 Sep 20;28(27):4184-90. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2010.28.1618. Epub 2010 Jul 26.
• Background Czuczman MS, Olejniczak S, Gowda A, Kotowski A, Binder A, Kaur H, Knight J, Starostik P, Deans J, Hernandez-Ilizaliturri FJ. Acquirement of rituximab resistance in lymphoma cell lines is associated with both global CD20 gene and protein down-regulation regulated at the pretranscriptional and posttranscriptional levels. Clin Cancer Res. 2008 Mar 1;14(5):1561-70. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-07-1254.
• Background Dunleavy K, Pittaluga S, Czuczman MS, Dave SS, Wright G, Grant N, Shovlin M, Jaffe ES, Janik JE, Staudt LM, Wilson WH. Differential efficacy of bortezomib plus chemotherapy within molecular subtypes of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Blood. 2009 Jun 11;113(24):6069-76. doi: 10.1182/blood-2009-01-199679. Epub 2009 Apr 20.

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