How well does acalabrutinib work and how safe is it to treat patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma who have had previous treatments? a plain language summary of 2 key studies

Plain Language Summary: What is this summary about? This summary is about acalabrutinib, a medication available for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL), which are types of blood cancer. We selected 2 key studies (ELEVATE-RR and ASCEND) that will provide important information about acalabrutinib for patients with CLL/SLL who had received other treatments in the past for their blood cancer. In these publications, acalabrutinib is compared with standard treatments, such as chemotherapy, or to more modern targeted therapies. What were the results? The first study (ASCEND) included patients with CLL/SLL who were not responding to prior treatment (‘refractory’) or those who initially responded to treatment but the disease had returned or worsened (‘relapsed’). The results showed that more patients treated in this study with acalabrutinib (62%) were alive without worsening of their disease compared with those receiving idelalisib plus rituximab (23%) or bendamustine plus rituximab (5%), a targeted therapy and a chemoimmunotherapy medication, respectively. The second study (ELEVATE-RR) also included people with CLL/SLL with high-risk features (that is, del(17p)/TP53 and del(11q)) and previous unsuccessful therapies (who either relapsed or were refractory). This study showed that treatment with acalabrutinib was similar to ibrutinib (another targeted therapy with similar features) in effectiveness and caused fewer side effects (an unwanted and sometimes dangerous reaction caused by a medication) affecting the heart rhythm, blood pressure, and bleeding. What do the results mean? These results mean that acalabrutinib is an effective and safe option for patients with CLL/SLL who have had unsuccessful treatments in the past, including those who relapsed or were refractory or with high-risk features. This is an abstract of the Plain Language Summary of Publication article. View the full Plain Language Summary PDF of this article to read the full-text.