Dr. Gavin Cull who is a clinical and laboratory haematologist at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital has co-authored a very important study which compares the safety and efficacy of two highly effective drugs ibrutinib and zanubrutinib in treating patients with Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia.
Below, Dr. Cull discusses the important findings this has for patients:
“Results of studies conducted at the Haematology Department, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, were published recently in Blood journal and showed that zanubrutinib is a safe and very effective treatment for patients with Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia (WM). WM is a form of low grade lymphoma which involves the bone marrow and causes problems with low blood counts as it gets worse. The ASPEN study compared the efficacy and safety of ibrutinib, a first generation BTK-inhibitor, with zanubrutinib, a novel, highly selective BTK-inhibitor. While both drugs were highly effective in the treatment of WM, zanubrutinib was associated with less side-effects, including atrial fibrillation, and a trend toward better response quality. These results are consistent with the 3-year follow-up data of zanubrutinib in patients with WM, also published recently in Blood journal. Together, these studies confirm that zanubrutinib is a very effective treatment for patients with relapsed WM and is associated with a low incidence of side-effects.”