Lenalidomide (Revlimid) Associated with Excess Deaths in the Elderly

Honestly, I didn't see this coming. The IMIDs (immuno-modulating drugs such as lenalidomide or Revlimid) are touted as kinder gentler and safer therapy for the elderly.

Not so says this trial. 

What it found instead in an interim analysis was a significant increase in the number of deaths for those taking lenalidomide compared to those on the old school chemo drug, chlorambucil, an oral alkylating agent.

Now of course the details on the causes of the excessive deaths will help unravel this story, but for now it is a cautionary tale as why we need trials to test what seem to be safe and logical assumptions.

Does this mean if you are in another trial with lenalidomide, you should stop? Absolutely not, but you should discuss with your doctor what this means in your particular circumstance. Probably nothing if you are doing well.

Now this is a newsflash, and the full story is far from told, but since it is a popular non-chemo option out there, I wanted to share this ASAP.

Personally, I still believe there is a role for IMIDs in CLL (too many patients have done well with them), but my bigger belief is that we really have a very primitive understanding of how they work.

We have begun to crack the biology on B cell receptors pathways and BCL-2, but what exactly Revlimid is doing is murky. 

And usually our best results come when we have nailed the underlying basic science. Some drugs have come to us in the past from plain dumb luck, but most of the breakthrough today are based on meticulous pre-clinical basic research.

Here's the news:

GEN News Highlights : Jul 18, 2013

Celgene Halts a Phase III B-Cell CLL Trial Because of Deaths

Celgene today said that after a consultation with the FDA it will stop administering Revlimid® (lenalidomide) in its open-label, Phase III ORIGIN® trial because of patient deaths.

“An imbalance was observed in the number of deaths in patients treated with lenalidomide versus patients treated with chlorambucil,” Celgene said.

The trial, which FDA placed on clinical hold July 12, was intended to evaluate the efficacy and safety of lenalidomide versus chlorambucil as single agent in elderly patients 65 and older with B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), plus comorbidities that precluded treatment with more aggressive standard chemo-immunotherapies.

The firm noted that, in this particular trial, there were 34 deaths out of 210 patients in the lenalidomide arm compared with 18 deaths out of 211 patients in the chlorambucil group. It added that “all other Celgene-sponsored chronic lymphocytic leukemia clinical trials with lenalidomide are continuing in accordance with their respective protocols.”

Revlimid is approved in the US for the treatment of patients with mantle cell lymphoma whose disease has relapsed or progressed after two prior therapies. The drug is also approved in the US, Canada Switzerland, Australia, and New Zealand, Malaysia, Israel, and “several Latin American countries”—according to Celgene—for the treatment of transfusion-dependent anemia due to low- or intermediate-1-risk MDS associated with a deletion 5q cytogenetic abnormality with or without additional cytogenetic abnormalities. In Europe, the drug is also approved for the treatment of similar patients with an isolated deletion 5q cytogenetic abnormality when other therapeutic options are insufficient or inadequate. Revlimid is not approved as a CLL treatment.