EHA 2021 | Cassiopeia: update on daratumumab maintenance for multiple myeloma
Leo Rasche, MD, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR, discusses an update on the Cassiopeia trial (NCT02541383), a study which is investigating daratumumab maintenance therapy in transplant-eligible patients with previously untreated multiple myeloma. Dr Rasche highlights a hazard ratio of 0.5 and comments on the safety profile. Dr Rasche also talks on the impact of daratumumab induction on the outcomes of patients receiving daratumumab maintenance and comments on the importance of determining outcomes with lenalidomide and daratumumab in combination. This interview took place at the virtual European Hematology Association (EHA) Congress 2021.
Transcript (edited for clarity)
Well, what I really liked was the abstract on the CASSIOPEIA study, especially the part two, which now has been released and discussed at EHA. It’s the daratumumab monotherapy maintenance study. So, very convenient schedule was tested. Like dara every months- err, every eight weeks, every other month, an injection of daratumumab as a maintenance strategy. So, very convenient for the patient and very effective what we see...
Well, what I really liked was the abstract on the CASSIOPEIA study, especially the part two, which now has been released and discussed at EHA. It’s the daratumumab monotherapy maintenance study. So, very convenient schedule was tested. Like dara every months- err, every eight weeks, every other month, an injection of daratumumab as a maintenance strategy. So, very convenient for the patient and very effective what we see. So, the hazard ratio was 0.5, so good disease control. It was also well tolerable, so no new safety signal.
However, there was one very, very interesting observation in this context. This therapy was effective, but not in patient who had already been treated with dara in the induction part of the study. So, there seems to be an effect of daratumumab, which is very important in first-line, but it does not seem to be that important if you give dara in the, as part of the induction or as part of the maintenance therapy.
However, and this is important to note, dara monotherapy every eight weeks is everything but standard. The standard of care is lenalidomide maintenance. And so, it’s really more important to see how the combination dara plus lenalidomide in maintenance will perform.
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