It is necessary to provide Kymriah treatment accessibility

Utilize RWE data from The HIRA to analyze the survival period of DLBCL patients who failed secondary treatment

MOS 4.73 months, 70% after failure of secondary treatment remains salvage chemotherapy

It is necessary to provide Kymriah treatment accessibility with high response rates

Novartis Korea (CEO Kim Skafte Mortensen) announced on the 30th that the ICBMT released the results of a study that analyzed the treatment of DLBCL patients in Korea from August 26 at ICBMT.

 

DLBCL is an aggressive lymphoma that accounts for about 40% of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

 

Although most standard treatments show abnormalities in part, it is known that 10 to 15% of patients do not respond to primary treatments and 20 to 35% experience recurrence.

 

The study was conducted to identify the demographic characteristics and treatment patterns and prognosis of DLBCL patients in Korea.

 

Led by Professor Park Mi-hye, College of Pharmacy, Sungkyunkwan University, a total of 4931 claims of the HIRA were analyzed from January 1, 2013 to July 31, 2019.

 

The analysis found that the median of the overall survival of DLBCL patients who failed secondary treatment was 4.73 months.

 

In addition, about 70% of patients who failed the second treatment were repeatedly undergoing salvage chemotherapy, and the duration of the second treatment to the third treatment was gradually shortened to 2.86 months (median) and 1.81 months (median) to the fourth treatment.

 

"This study confirmed the poor treatment prognosis and limitations of current treatment of recurrence and non-responsiveness DLBCL patients in Korea," said Park Mi-hye, a professor at Sungkyunkwan University, who led the study.

 

"There are no alternative treatments and poor prognosis.

 

"This is the first study that has been analyzed for all patients in Korea using all data on claim data." She added, "In the end, the patients were repeating salvage chemotherapy, which is difficult to expect a life extension due to the absence of treatment options, and as the number of treatment increases, the length of failure will be shorter, so patients who are unable to expect further reactions need available treatment options." Poor prognosis and the need for effective treatment options in patients with recurrent and non-responsive DLBCL have already been confirmed through global research.

 

According to the SCHOLAR-1 study, the first patient-level analysis result for non-responsive DLBCL patients, the complete response rate for non-responsive DLBCL patients was 7% and the median duration was only 6.3 months.

 

Further analysis of the CORAL study, a multi-organ, randomized clinical trial, also showed that the expected survival rate for one or two years among patients with recurrent and non-responsive DLBCL, especially those who failed secondary relief chemotherapy, was 23% and 15.7%, respectively.

 

"This analysis is encouraging in that we can see the treatment patterns or prognosis of most patients in the actual benefit care environment," said Yoon Duk-hyun, a professor of oncology at Asan Medical Center in Seoul who participated in clinical consultation and research on DLBCL disease and domestic treatment status.

 

Professor Yoon said, "Even though patients with recurrent and non-responsive DLBCL use repeated salvage chemotherapy, the period until the next treatment period was very short, with a median of two to three months, showing very poor prognosis because there are no effective alternative treatments." The new option CAR-T treatment, Kymriah, was the only one in Korea in March to prove a high response rate and persistence in a single treatment in a recurrent and non-responsive DLBCL patient.

 

"Fortunately, new targeted treatments and cell treatments, which are completely different from conventional anticancer drugs, are under development or approval," Professor Yoon said.

 

"However, most new treatments require improvement due to the high cost of patients."