Daratumumab VS Lenalidomide maintenance therapy in Multiple Myeloma | Urvi Shah, MD

Hi, I'm Urvi Shah, a hematologist, oncologist, and physician scientist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. I wanted to talk about our abstract looking at daratumumab single agent versus lenalidomide single agent in the maintenance setting in newly diagnosed myeloma with or without a transplant. There are more studies and the standard of care for myeloma for many years has been lenalidomide maintenance, given that it improves progression free survival. However, with the availability of daratumumab, which is a monthly dosing and has sometimes less toxicities around diarrhea, there has been no head to head study looking at single agent daratumumab compared to single agent lenalidomide. This study was looking at 89 patients randomized one is to one after they achieved a very good partial response after their induction and or transplant. What we saw was that there was very similar and consistent progression free survival rates, MRD negativity rates between the two groups. The primary endpoint of this study was quality of life to see if there was any difference between the groups and we saw no difference. There were some aspects like diarrhea that was worse in the lenalidomide group and emotional functioning in the daratumumab group. Serious adverse events, there was a higher signal for infections with daratumumab compared to lenalidomide, but overall both drugs were well tolerated and this study gives us evidence or as an additional option for patients to think about daratumumab maintenance, especially in situations where they may not want to take a pill at home or they are preferring to come in just once a month for the treatment and if they have any side effects to lenalidomide, this could be a great option.