Rituximab is a synthetic molecule engineered to target the protein CD20, which is found on the surface of many blood cancer cells.

This therapy is already approved for treating patients with other malignancies, including B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.

CD20 is present in 30 to 50 percent of patients with B-cell precursor acute lymphocytic leukaemia (BCP-ALL), a type of leukaemia that is common in children but also affects adults.

Results of standard therapy in adults is poor compared to results achieved in children.

This multicenter, randomised clinical trial aimed to evaluate the benefit of adding rituximab to standard chemotherapy for patients aged 18 to 59 with newly diagnosed CD20-positive Philadelphia chromosome-negative BCP-ALL.

Investigators randomised 220 patients to receive chemotherapy with or without rituximab for a total of 16 to 18 infusions.

After a median follow up of 30 months, patients who received rituximab had a lower incidence of relapse compared to those who did not (18% in the rituximab arm vs. 30.5% in the control arm).

Furthermore, 65 percent of patients in the rituximab arm achieved two-year event-free survival compared to 52 percent of those who did not receive the drug.

The study suggests that adding rituximab to standard therapy improves event-free survival for patients with BCP-ALL.

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Source: ASH