After a median follow-up of nearly 4 years, patients who received the two-drug combination lived more than twice as long without their disease progressing (69.5 months versus 31.2 months) as patients who received the standard first-line treatment, rituximab and a chemotherapy regimen called CHOP, or R-CHOP.
Full Answer
Is rituximab effective in elderly patients with low-tumour burden follicular lymphoma?
Jun 21, 2021 · Dear Editor, As the outcome of follicular lymphoma (FL), the most common subtype of indolent non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, has been improved since the introduction of immunochemotherapy, non-lymphoma-related causes of death, including infections, have become increasingly important [1, 2].Bendamustine is widely used as one of the key drugs of the …
How does bendamustine + rituximab work for B-cell lymphoma?
The treatment of low-tumour burden follicular lymphoma (LTBFL) remains a challenge. Rituximab-based strategies may be improved by adding chemotherapy. This Lymphoma Study Association multicentre phase II study assessed rituximab and bendamustine in 63 patients with untreated LTBFL who were aged over 60 years old and had a follicular lymphoma ...
Is bendamustine an effective treatment option for indolent lymphoma?
Mar 12, 2018 · Of these, 76.2% achieved a complete response (CR; complete disappearance of all signs of cancer) or a partial response (PR; tumor shrinkage). 23.7% of patients had history of another cancer. 86.1% of patients combined bendamustine with rituximab or another nonchemotherapy agent (7.7%). The average follow-up period was 31.2 months. 82.4% of …
How many times can you take bendamustine + rituximab?
After a median follow-up of nearly 4 years, patients who received the two-drug combination lived more than twice as long without their disease progressing (69.5 months versus 31.2 months) as patients who received the standard first-line treatment, rituximab and a chemotherapy regimen called CHOP, or R-CHOP.
How long does it take for bendamustine to work?
(With an IV infusion, the drug is injected into your vein over a period of time.) Each Bendeka infusion takes about 10 minutes. You'll be given Bendeka on 2 days during each of your prescribed treatment cycles.Apr 6, 2020
What is the cost of bendamustine?
The cost for bendamustine intravenous solution (25 mg/mL) is around $2,191 for a supply of 4 milliliters, depending on the pharmacy you visit. Prices are for cash paying customers only and are not valid with insurance plans.
How effective is bendamustine and rituximab?
Based on the willingness-to-pay threshold of $50,000 per QALY, bendamustine plus rituximab was the more cost-effective strategy than R-CHOP 66% of the time in follicular lymphoma, 82% in mantle-cell lymphoma, 64% in marginal zone lymphoma, and 86% in lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma.
What is the latest treatment for follicular lymphoma?
The newest drug to be approved by the FDA for follicular lymphoma is Copiktra (duvelisib), an oral drug that targets PI3K-alpha, a protein that is overexpressed in many B-cell cancers, including follicular lymphoma, and encourages the growth of cancerous cells.
Is bendamustine a chemo drug?
Bendamustine is a type of chemotherapy drug called an alkylating agent.
Will I lose my hair on bendamustine?
In a safety evaluation from a clinical study for CLL, hair loss occurred in 1 of the 153 patients treated with bendamustine hydrochloride compared to 0 (zero) of the 143 patients treated with chlorambucil. In an NHL study, hair loss occurred in 3 of the 100 patients treated with bendamustine hydrochloride.
Is bendamustine chemotherapy or immunotherapy?
Bendamustine (Bendeka®) + Rituximab is a Chemotherapy Regimen for Lymphoma, B-cell. Click the orange links and we'll show you extra information. Click this one to give it a try.Dec 18, 2016
What are the long term side effects of bendamustine?
This medicine may increase your risk of developing a serious and rare brain infection called progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML). Check with your doctor if you have weakness on one side of the body, clumsiness, blurred vision, changes in thinking, memory problems, confusion, or personality changes.Feb 1, 2022
How is bendamustine given?
How Bendamustine Is Given: As an injection into the vein (intravenous, IV). There is no pill form of Bendamustine. The amount of Bendamustine that you will receive depends on many factors, including your height and weight, your general health or other health problems, and the type of cancer or condition being treated.
What is the best treatment for follicular lymphoma?
FL is generally very responsive to radiation and chemotherapy. Radiation alone can provide a long-lasting remission in some patients with limited disease. In more advanced stages, physicians may use one or more chemotherapy drugs or the monoclonal antibody rituximab (Rituxan), alone or in combination with other agents.
Can you live a long life with follicular lymphoma?
Follicular lymphoma is slow-growing cancer. People diagnosed with the disease may not find a cure but can still live for a long time with it. The five-year survival rate for follicular lymphoma is 80-90% with patients surviving for a median of 10-12 years.Aug 13, 2021
How successful is chemo for follicular lymphoma?
Commonly used chemotherapy regimens for follicular lymphoma include rituximab (Rituxan; Genentech, Biogen) plus bendamustine or CHOP chemotherapy. In general, these combinations result in an overall response rate of 90%, with approximately 40% of patients achieving complete remission.May 9, 2017
In a nutshell
This study examined the long-term safety and effectiveness of bendamustine ( Treanda) in lymphoma and leukemia. This study concluded that bendamustine is a safe and effective therapy for these patients.
Some background
Bendamustine has been shown to have high effectiveness and few side effects for a wide range of lymphomas. This drug is currently used for lymphoma and leukemia that does not respond to rituximab ( Rituxan ).
Methods & findings
This study involved 194 lymphoma or leukemia patients. 32.5% of patients had chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma. 32% had follicular lymphoma. 9.8% had mantle cell lymphoma. 7.2% had diffuse large b-cell lymphoma, and 1.5% had Hodgkin's lymphoma.
The bottom line
This study concluded that bendamustine is a safe and effective treatment option for patients with lymphomas.
The fine print
This study looked back in time to analyze data. This analysis depended on patient charts, and documentation differed between physicians. As a result, the collected data may be incomplete. Also, the original sample size was 248, but some patients were lost during follow-up or did not complete treatment. This further limits this study’s analysis.
How to treat relapsed FL?
Treatment for relapsed/refractory FL is based on a patient’s age, overall health, symptoms, and the duration of remission from the last treatment they received. Chemotherapy, radiation, monoclonal antibodies, and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy may be used to treat relapsed/refractory FL. Common second-line regimens include: 1 Axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta) 2 Bendamustine (Treanda) with or without rituximab (Rituxan) or obinutuzumab (Gazyva) 3 Copanlisib (Aliqopa) 4 Duvelisib (Copiktra) 5 Fludarabine (Fludara) and rituximab (Rituxan) 6 Idelalisib (Zydelig) 7 Lisocabtagene Maraleucel (liso-cel, Breyanzi) 8 R² – rituximab and lenalidomide (Rituxan and Revlimid) 9 R-CHOP (rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone) 10 R-CVP (rituximab, cyclophosphamide, vincristine, and prednisone) 11 R-FND (rituximab, fludarabine, mitoxantrone, and dexamethasone) 12 Rituximab 13 Rituximab and Hyaluronidase Human (Rituxan Hycela) 14 Tazemetostat (TAZVERIK) 15 Umbralisib (UKONIQ)
What is second line therapy?
For patients who relapse or become refractory, second-line therapies (treatment given when initial therapy does not work or stops working) are often successful in providing another remission.
Is Bendamustine safe for FL?
Bendamustine is approved for patients with indolent B-cell NHLs, like FL, whose disease is refractory to rituximab. Radiation therapy can be effective in some patients with relapsed/ refractory FL who have large tumors or disease symptoms. Often very low doses of radiation can be quite beneficial.
Can yttrium 90 be used alone?
Although uncommon, radioimmunotherapy (RIT) using an agent such as yttrium-90 ibritumomab tiuxetan (Zevalin), which is a radioactive particle connected to an antibody that targets cancer cells, may also be used alone or in combination with chemotherapy to treat relapsed/refractory FL.
What are monoclonal antibodies?
Monoclonal antibodies can act more directly than chemotherapy agents by targeting particular markers found on B-cells and recruiting immune cells to promote tumor destruction, which can increase response to treatment. Common combination regimens include: 1 R-Bendamustine (rituximab and bendamustine) 2 R-CHOP (rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone) 3 R-CVP (rituximab, cyclophosphamide, vincristine, and prednisone)
Can you use rituximab alone for FL?
In more advanced stages, physicians may use one or more chemotherapy drugs or the monoclonal antibody rituximab (Rituxan), alone or in combination with other agents.
What is PI3 kinase?
These are medications that flick switches on the cells that hit a pathway or a switch on the cell called PI3 kinase. Two of these are pills. One of these are intravenous. And these also can be useful on patients who have follicular lymphoma that's come back.
What is the most important test for lymphoma?
In lymphoma, the testing that's been most important is biopsies by the pathologist to really classify the type of lymphoma. There are a few molecular tests in certain types of lymphoma, chromosomal tests to look and see what switches or changes in the chromosomes have occurred in that patient's tumor cells that might correlate with a better or worse outcome or a response to treatment A or treatment B. So there are a number of different pathology tests in that regard that are commonly done in lymphoma. Genomic tests, where we're looking at the precise mutations that have occurred in the tumor cells, are as of right now, not hugely valuable in treating or picking treatment for patients with follicular lymphoma. There are some patterns that we see when we do genomic tests that might suggest the patient's going to do a little better or a little worse.
What is the treatment for follicular lymphoma?
There more recently was approved a drug called lenalidomide or Revlimid.
What is EZH2 inhibitor?
EZH2 is what we call an epigenetic target. It affects what genes are turned on and turned off in the cell and mutations in EZH2, that gene, have been associated with a little bit better outcomes to this EZH2 inhibitor. And then we have lots of other treatments, traditional chemotherapy.
What is the drug for multiple myeloma?
There more recently was approved a drug called lenalidomide or Revlimid. It is a pill that's used for multiple myeloma commonly, but also approved in combination with rituximab that I mentioned earlier in follicular lymphoma. So that's one option. We also have a category of drugs called PI3 kinase inhibitors.
Can follicular lymphoma cause death?
Most patients with follicular lymphoma don't die from their lymphoma. They die of something else. And the hitchhiker is along for the ride. That said, there are some people that do have problems and can die from follicular lymphoma. And we clearly want to prevent that.
Is genomic testing useful for follicular lymphoma?
Genomic tests, where we're looking at the precise mutations that have occurred in the tumor cells, are as of right now, not hugely valuable in treating or picking treatment for patients with follicular lymphoma.
How often is Bendamustine and Rituximab repeated?
Bendamustine + Rituximab is repeated every 28 days. This is known as one Cycle. Each four-week cycle may be repeated up to six times, depending upon the stage of the disease. Duration of therapy may last up to six months, depending upon response, tolerability, and number of cycles prescribed.
What doctor will take care of cancer patients after surgery?
A cancer doctor will typically take over coordinating care and monitoring after surgery has been performed to remove the cancer. An oncologist or hematologist will help determine if medications may be needed to get rid of any remaining cancer cells, or to help prevent the cancer from coming back.
How long does it take to infuse Rituximab?
Rituximab intravenous infusion (I.V.) on Day 1. The time of infusion varies depending upon tolerability. Bendamustine I.V. infusion over ten minutes on Days 1 and 2.
What is the purpose of rituximab?
Rituximab is an antibody that is designed to target and bind to a protein on the surface of cancerous b-cells. When rituximab binds to this protein, it helps your immune system destroy the cancer cell. Bendamustine is designed to kill rapidly dividing cells such as cancerous lymphocyte cells. Goals of therapy:
What is the goal of Bendamustine?
Goals of therapy: Bendamustine + rituximab is given to shrink lymph nodes and decrease symptoms from b-cell lymphoma such as fevers, night sweats, and weight loss.
What is emotional wellness?
What is Emotional Wellness?#N#Emotional wellness is having a positive outlook balanced with a realistic understanding of current life events. This requires both an awareness and acceptance of your emotions. It is with this knowledge that you can develop a plan to take the necessary actions to positively impact your life.
What causes diarrhea in the body?
In some cases, diarrhea can be caused by an infection. Be sure to speak to your nurse and care team before attempting to manage diarrhea at home. You should then consider trying the B.R.A.T. diet (banana, rice, applesauce, toast, oatmeal, or crackers) or bland foods.
