In patients with central nervous system (CNS) relapse of mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), ibrutinib was linked with superior survival compared with blood-brain barrier (BBB)-penetrating chemotherapy, according to a study published in Blood. Chiara Rusconi, MD, and colleagues conducted a multicenter retrospective study to explore the
outcomes, including overall survival (OS), of 88 patients treated with ibrutinib or chemoimmunotherapy. Patients with MCL with CNS involvement at relapse who received CNS-directed therapy were recruited. Participants (median age, 65; 75% males) had a median time from lymphoma diagnosis to CNS relapse of 16 months. Patients were treated with ibrutinib (N=29), BBB crossing chemotherapy (N=29), or miscellaneous therapies (N=30). In the ibrutinib cohort, compared with the BBB cohort, both median OS (16.8 vs 4.4 months; P=0.007) and median progression-free survival (PFS) were superior. Ibrutinib was the most robust, independent, favorable predictive factor for both OS and PFS, followed by CNS progression of disease more than 24 months from first MCL diagnosis.
