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EHA 2026 | Outcomes from the EPCORE DLBCL-3 trial: fixed-duration epcoritamab in elderly patients with DLBCL
Umberto Vitolo, MD, Candiolo Cancer Institute, FPO-IRCCS, Turin, Italy, shares insight into the EPCORE DLBCL-3 (NCT05660967) trial evaluating fixed-duration epcoritamab monotherapy in elderly patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). Prof. Vitolo highlights favorable efficacy outcomes and indicates that a chemo-free approach may be feasible for elderly patients; however, longer-term follow-up is required. This interview took place at the 31st Congress of the European Hematology Association (EHA) in Stockholm, Sweden.
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Transcript
This is a completely different study because the focus of the study is for elderly patients unfit or frail with contraindication to standard treatment including cardiac contraindication to doxorubicin. The prognosis of this patient is really poor because usually the type of patient are treated in clinical practice with a palliative intent, so they need a more effective therapy. This study focuses on this patient and with the chemo-free treatment for newly diagnosed diffuse large B-cell lymphoma with contraindication to doxorubicin, with a chemo-free treatment with epcoritamab and bispecific antibodies...
This is a completely different study because the focus of the study is for elderly patients unfit or frail with contraindication to standard treatment including cardiac contraindication to doxorubicin. The prognosis of this patient is really poor because usually the type of patient are treated in clinical practice with a palliative intent, so they need a more effective therapy. This study focuses on this patient and with the chemo-free treatment for newly diagnosed diffuse large B-cell lymphoma with contraindication to doxorubicin, with a chemo-free treatment with epcoritamab and bispecific antibodies. In the first part of the study, patients were randomized to receive epcoritamab alone or epcoritamab plus lenalidomide in the 44 patients for each arm. Based on the lower efficacy and the worse safety profile of the combination arm, the monotherapy with epcoritamab was selected to be expanded in the part two of the study. Overall, we treated 66 patients with epcoritamab monotherapy, and the median age of this patient was 82, and the vast majority of this patient had at least three major comorbidities, and 97% had cardiac comorbidities with contraindication to doxorubicin. The complete remission rate was 58%, and one-year progression-free survival was 50%. That is a good result for elderly and frail patients that are usually not treated with a standard treatment. Okay, in summary, the DLBCL-3 study shows that a chemo-free approach is feasible and is an effective and promising treatment for elderly and frail patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma newly diagnosed who are usually treated in a palliative way, so offering a new possibility for this patient, of course, these results need to be confirmed in a larger study and also I’m pleased to announce that this study will be published tomorrow in the Lancet Hematology Journal.
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