FRIDAY, Oct. 7, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- Adding daratumumab to lenalidomide and dexamethasone in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma may significantly improve patients' odds of progression-free survival, according to a study published in the Oct. 6 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Meletios Dimopoulos, M.D., a professor at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece, and colleagues recruited 569 patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma who had received one or more previous lines of therapy. Study participants were randomly assigned to receive either lenalidomide and dexamethasone alone (standard treatment) or with the addition of daratumumab (three-drug regimen).
Over a median follow-up of 13.5 months, the researchers found that 41.0 percent of the patients in the standard-treatment group either died or saw their cancer progress versus 18.5 percent of patients receiving the three-drug regimen (hazard ratio, 0.37). Use of daratumumab was associated with a doubling of the rate of complete response or better: 43.1 percent versus 19.2 percent.
"It is very likely that (this regimen) will be rapidly adopted by practicing physicians," Dimopoulos told HealthDay.
Janssen Biotech, which markets daratumumab, funded the study. Dimopoulos and some of the co-researchers have served on the company's advisory board.
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