Professor Ross Baker and the Perth Blood Institute’s (PBI) Clinical Trials Unit have been part of the team to successfully find a treatment to prolong progression free survival (PFS) in patients with relapsed indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

This publication is an interim analysis of the findings from a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial involving 186 academic medical centres throughout Australia, New Zealand, Asia, Europe, Russia, South Africa, North and South America. The inclusion criteria for patients included being aged ≥18 years; an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status of no more than 2 (being capable of all self-care but unable to carry out any work activities and up and about >50% of waking hours); a confirmed CD20-positive indolent (slow-growing) B-cell lymphoma which has relapsed after their last therapy; and progression-free and treatment-free for at least 12 months.

The aim of the study was to evaluate whether copanlisib in combination with rituximab is superior to placebo in combination with rituximab in prolonging progression free survival (PFS). Of the 458 patients, 307 were randomly assigned to the copanlisib and rituximab group and 151 to the placebo plus rituximab group. After a median follow-up of 19.2 months, there was a statistically and clinically significant improvement in progression-free survival rate among the copanlisib and rituximab group compared to the placebo and rituximab group.

Therefore, copanlisib plus rituximab has shown to improve progression-free survival in patients with relapsed indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma. To our knowledge, copanlisib is the first PI3K inhibitor to be safely combined with rituximab and the first to show broad and superior efficacy in combination with rituximab in patients with relapsed indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

The article was published April 10, 2021. The full article can be located at Lancet Oncology website.