Lymphoma Hub is reporting good news on results of a clinical trial of R-Squared (Rituxan + Revlimid, also known as Lenalidomide).
Actually, it's great news: Adding Revlimid to Rituxan seems to overcome Rituxan Resistance.
The trial involved 43 patients with different types of indolent lymphoma, including 26 with Follicular Lymphoma. About half were resistant to Rituxan, and the other half or so had relapsed after Rituxan treatment within six months.
Patients received Revlimid every day for 8 weeks. They were then given Rituxan once a week for four weeks. The Overall Response Rate after the Revlimid was 30.2%, which is pretty good. However, adding Rituxan again was even better -- after 12 weeks of letting after letting the Rituxan do its job, the ORR was 62.8%, more than double. Clearly, the Revlimid did its work. Patients in the trial started out resistant to Rituxan, and ended up having it work again.
The results for the patients with Follicular Lymphoma were even better. The ORR after Revlimid was only 19%. But after Rituxan, it jumped to 65% -- more than triple.
R-Squared (or R + R) has been in trials for a while, but according to Lymphoma Hub, this is the first trial to report results. I think they give us a lot to be excited about.
Of course, this is a small study. And then, there are the side effects that come with Revlimid (see the article for more on that). But I think this is a good example of the kind of combination therapy that we'll see more of in the future. We know how complex cancer is, and attacking it from different angles.
I'm sure we'll see more about R-Squared in the future.
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