John Theurer Cancer Center Investigators Report Effectiveness of New Treatment for Refractory Multiple Myeloma

Published:
January 13, 2020

What you need to know

Investigators at John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey report effectiveness of treatment in the CANDOR global phase III clinical trial for patients with refractory (persistent) multiple myeloma.
The study was selected as the prestigious plenary presentation at the 61st American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting, the world's leading conference for hematologic cancers and blood disorders, held in Orlando in December.

More details about the CANDOR study

The CANDOR study showed that the addition of the anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody daratumumab to treatment with carfilzomib and dexamethasone was more effective than conventional carfilzomib and dexamethasone. Patients receiving the three-drug regimen experienced a 37% reduction in the risk of disease progression or death, establishing a new standard of care. Patients in the CANDOR trial had been heavily pretreated and most had failed to respond to lenalidomide, an immunomodulating drug that forms the backbone of most multiple myeloma treatment regimens. The phase III CANDOR study included 466 patients with multiple myeloma that persisted despite one to three prior regimens of therapy. Patients were randomly assigned 2:1 to receive either daratumumab, carfilzomib, and dexamethasone or carfilzomib and dexamethasone. After a median follow-up of 17 months, the median progression-free survival was not yet reached in the three-drug combination group, versus 16 months in patients receiving the standard therapy. Patients receiving three drugs had a better overall response rate (84.3% versus 74.7%) and a better rate of complete response or better (28.5% versus 10.4%), and the achievement of undetectable disease was nearly ten times higher (12.5% versus 1.3%). It was too early to detect any differences in overall survival. Side effects were generally manageable and the incidence of treatment discontinuation was similar in both groups