(CercleFinance.com) – AstraZeneca announced on Monday that a phase 3 study of its Calquence tablet had shown a ‘significant’ reduction in the risk of disease progression or death in patients with mantle cell lymphoma (LCM).
Combined with chemotherapy, this oral treatment provided a 27% reduction in the risk of disease progression or death compared to the administration of standard chemotherapy in treatment-naïve patients.
Overall patient survival reached a median of 66.4 months, compared with 49.6 months for chemotherapy alone.
MCL is a rare form of B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma that is more common in men over the age of 50.
Usually diagnosed in its late stages, this blood cancer often spreads to other organs, including the bone marrow, spleen and liver.
Many patients with MCL initially respond to treatment, but a high rate of recurrence sometimes leads to a poor prognosis.
These data were presented during the congress of the European Hepatology Association (EHA) in Madrid.