Besponsa for ALL – pro
For adult patients with B-cell ALL whose cancer has not responded to initial treatment or has returned after treatment, life expectancy is typically lowand these patients have few treatments available.
Besponsa is a targeted therapy that is thought to work by binding to B-cell ALL cancer cells that express the CD22 antigen, blocking the growth of cancerous cells.
The safety and efficacy of Besponsa were studied in a randomized trial of 326 patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell ALL who had received one or two prior treatments. Of the 218 evaluated patients, 35.8 percent who received Besponsa experienced CR for a median 8.0 months; of the patients who received alternative chemotherapy, 17.4 percent experienced CR for a median 4.9 months.
The prescribing information for Besponsa includes a boxed warning that severe liver damage (hepatotoxicity), including blockage of veins in the liver (veno-occlusive disease [VOD] or sinusoidal obstruction syndrome).
Besponsa Prescribing Information, 2017
NCCN, ALL 2017