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SOHO 2026 | Phase Ib trial of ianalumab plus ibrutinib in CLL: treatment-free intervals and immune recovery
Kerry Rogers, MD, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, discusses a Phase Ib study (NCT03400176) evaluating the addition of ianalumab to ibrutinib in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). The trial showed promising results in achieving deep responses and allowing treatment discontinuation in some patients. Dr Rogers highlights the importance of understanding the impact of treatment on patients’ immune recovery and psychosocial functioning, including their psychological well-being and quality of life. This interview took place at the 14th Annual Meeting of the Society of Hematologic Oncology (SOHO 2026) in Houston, TX.
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Transcript
We recently published the results of our Phase Ib study adding anti-BAFF receptor antibody called ianalumab to ibrutinib with a goal of allowing patients to discontinue ibrutinib. This was a Phase I study so it wasn’t something where we had an endpoint looking at discontinuation but we did see a lot of patients were able to get a deep response and stop treatment and have some sort of exploratory data from the lab showing that this can activate some of the immune system cells...
We recently published the results of our Phase Ib study adding anti-BAFF receptor antibody called ianalumab to ibrutinib with a goal of allowing patients to discontinue ibrutinib. This was a Phase I study so it wasn’t something where we had an endpoint looking at discontinuation but we did see a lot of patients were able to get a deep response and stop treatment and have some sort of exploratory data from the lab showing that this can activate some of the immune system cells. I think this is really just one more kind of way of demonstrating that even when people have been on something like a BTK inhibitor long-term, you can still add a second agent to get a deep remission and allow that time off treatment. We’re still learning how much immune recovery patients get after treatment. Certainly people with CLL live with immune dysfunction even before treatment. So I don’t know that being off treatment completely restores the immune system to normal. But I think understanding what it might mean for someone to be in an interval where they’re not taking pills for their CLL is really important. And certainly it would be exciting to see that there was more immune recovery in that period. One aspect of supportive care that I think is kind of looked at somewhat, but not I think as much as it probably should be, is what these things mean to our patients. There’s validated ways to look at psychosocial functioning, how psychological variables impact even like physical symptoms. And some studies have embedded in them, not the one I was talking about, that’s a Phase I study, but some Phase III studies like CLL-14 actually have embedded patient-reported outcomes for things like role functioning. And so I myself would like to understand better how being on active treatment or off treatment might impact the psychological well-being as well as the physical well-being of my patients. And I think that looking at someone’s psychosocial functioning is an aspect of supportive care that we should spend more time thinking about.
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