“All-Tablet” Treatment Shows Promise for Common Form of Leukemia
A new all-tablet therapy improves survival in CLL patients, offering a safer, more effective alternative to chemotherapy.
Complete the form below to unlock access to ALL audio articles.
An international study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine provides hope for chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) patients with a new all-tablet treatment showing impressive results.
The AMPLIFY clinical trial included over 800 never-before-treated CLL patients, across 27 countries, and compared a standard chemotherapy-based treatment to a new all-tablet approach.
Standard chemotherapy treatments for CLL, plus the immunotherapy treatment rituximab, require patients to undergo a lengthy infusion and can cause prolonged immune suppression and other unpleasant side-effects.
Want more breaking news?
Subscribe to Technology Networks’ daily newsletter, delivering breaking science news straight to your inbox every day.
Subscribe for FREE“Our study indicates a new treatment combination of two or three targeted therapies - acalabrutinib-venetoclax, with or without obinutuzumab - can significantly prolong progression free survival compared to the previous standard chemotherapy treatment regimens,” says Professor John Seymour, Director of Haematology at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
“These results are very encouraging with the overall survival at 36 months being significantly better with this all-tablet combination compared to chemotherapy treatments.
"It shows the potential to achieve better outcomes for patients through a simple tablet-based therapy, rather than requiring them to come to hospital and receive their treatment via an infusion.”
Prof Seymour said another all-tablet approach in CLL - using a different drug called ibrutinib - was approved in Australia however this was “associated with a concerning risk of heart complications which are much less frequent with the acalabrutinib-venetoclax combination”.
The trial also observed CLL patients with a disease profile called “uIGHV” which is generally associated with poorer outcomes compared to patients with the “mutated IGHV” profile.
“These patients had equivalent outcomes with the new combination, identifying this group as one that particularly benefits,” Prof Seymour says.
“When obinutuzumab treatment was added to the uIGHV group they had a progression-free survival similar to the group with mutated IGHV patients, which is promising in this hard-to-treat cancer group. It was also reassuring to observe similar side-effect profiles for all the treatments with the majority being readily manageable.
“This really is wonderful news for fit, treatment naive CLL patients and once this combination receives PBS-funding in Australia, we look forward to being able to offer them this safe and effective all-oral, fixed-duration regimen to reduce the burdens of therapy in the near future.”
CLL is a blood cancer that affects white blood cells called lymphocytes. It is the most common leukaemia in Australia, with approximately 1000 Australians diagnosed each year. These study results were also presented at the American Society of Haematology meeting in San Diego in December last year.
Reference: Brown JR, Seymour JF, Jurczak W, et al. Fixed-duration acalabrutinib combinations in untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia. N Engl J Med. 2025:NEJMoa2409804. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2409804
This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source. Our press release publishing policy can be accessed here.
