The CAR T-cell therapy idecabtagene vicleucel (ide-cel; Abecma) continues to demonstrate improved survival in heavily treated patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma, according to updated results from the phase 2 KarMMa trial (NCT03361748) presented at the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting. During the trial, 140 patients with at least three prior lines of treatment for multiple myeloma who were refractory to their last treatment regimen were enrolled. However, only 128 patients received an ide-cel infusion. The overall response rate was 73% in the overall population, with 33% complete response, 20% very good partial response and 20% partial response. The median time to first response was 1 month, with a median time to complete response of 2.8 months. In addition, the rapid response rate did not vary with the number of prior treatments received. The safety profile of ide-cel was consistent with long-term follow-up, with similar rates of infections and secondary primary malignancies, and no unexpected gene therapy-related toxicities were observed.
