Background Melphalan flufenamide (melflufen), an alkylating peptide-drug conjugate, plus dexamethasone showed clinical activity and manageable safety in the phase 2 HORIZON study. We aimed to determine whether melflufen plus dexamethasone would provide a progression-free survival benefit compared with pomalidomide plus dexamethasone in patients with previously treated multiple myeloma. MethodsIn this randomised, open-label, head-to-head, phase 3 study (OCEAN), adult patients (aged ≥18 years) were recruited from 108 university hospitals, specialist hospitals, and community-based centres in 21 countries across Europe, North America, and Asia. Eligible patients had an ECOG performance status of 0-2; must have had relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, refractory to lenalidomide (within 18 months of randomisation) and to the last line of therapy; and have received two to four previous lines of therapy (including lenalidomide and a proteasome inhibitor). Patients were randomly assigned (1:1), stratified by age, number of previous lines of therapy, and International Staging System score, to either 28-day cycles of melflufen and dexamethasone (melflufen group) or pomalidomide and dexamethasone (pomalidomide group). All patients received dexamethasone 40 mg orally on days 1, 8, 15, and 22 of each cycle. In the melflufen group, patients received melflufen 40 mg intravenously over 30 min on day 1 of each cycle and in the pomalidomide group, patients received pomalidomide 4 mg orally daily on days 1 to 21 of each cycle. The primary endpoint was progression-free survival assessed by an independent review committee in the intention-to-treat (ITT) population. Safety was assessed in patients who received at least one dose of study medication. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03151811, and is ongoing. Findings Between June 12, 2017, and Sept 3, 2020, 246 patients were randomly assigned to the melflufen group (median age 68 years [IQR 60-72]; 107 [43%] were female) and 249 to the pomalidomide group (median age 68 years [IQR 61-72]; 109 [44%] were female). 474 patients received at least one dose of study drug (melflufen group n=228; pomalidomide group n=246; safety population). Data cutoff was Feb 3, 2021. Median progression-free survival was 6•8 months (95% CI 5•0-8•5; 165 [67%] of 246 patients had an event) in the melflufen group and 4•9 months (4•2-5•7; 190 [76%] of 249 patients had an event) in the pomalidomide group (hazard ratio [HR] 0•79, [95% CI 0•64-0•98]; p=0•032), at a median follow-up of 15•5 months (IQR 9•4-22•8) in the melflufen group and 16•3 months (10•1-23•2) in the pomalidomide group. Median overall survival was 19•8 months (95% CI 15•1-25•6) at a median follow-up of 19•8 months (IQR 12•0-25•0) in the melflufen group and 25•0 months (95% CI 18•1-31•9) in the pomalidomide group at a median follow-up of 18•6 months (IQR 11•8-23•7; HR 1•10 [95% CI 0•85-1•44]; p=0•47). The most common grade 3 or 4 treatment-emergent adverse events were thrombocytopenia (143 [63%] of 228 in the melflufen group vs...

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Background: Cereblon (CRBN), a subunit of cullin 4-based E3 ubiquitine ligase complex, has been characterized as the main immunomodulatory drugs (IMiDs), thalidomide, lenalidomide and pomalidomide, binding protein that is crucial for their antiproliferative and immunomodulatory properties. Several recent reports have suggested that CRBN gene and protein expression or alternative splicing affect sensitivity to IMiDs in multiple myeloma (MM). It can be speculated that CRBN expression level, alternative splicing or CRBN-E3 ubiquitine ligase substrate specificity in MM and microenvironment cells may be partially determined by inherited genetic background including functional single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Aim: The objective of this study was to verify whether naturally occurring SNPs in CRBN encoding CRBNgene (locus chromosome 3p26.2) may influence outcome of lenalidomide-based therapy in patients with MM. Methods: We genotyped 14 tagging SNPs in CRBN gene in 169 Polish Caucasian patients with refractory/relapsed MM treated with lenalidomide-based therapy. Among these patients 151 (89%) received lenalidomide/dexamethasone (Len-Dex) regimen while the remaining patients were treated with lenalidomide-based three drug combinations. Genomic DNA samples were collected and genotyped in the context of the IMMEnSE consortium. The influence of CRBNallelic variants on probability to achieve clinical response (at least partial response, PR) to lenalidomide-based therapy, achievement of complete response (CR), duration of progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were tested in regard to established clinical and laboratory predictive factors using logistic regression and proportional-hazards regression models. For all genotyped SNPs co-dominant, dominant and recessive inheritance modes were tested. Results: We found that carriers of minor alleles of two studied SNPs, namely CRBN rs1714327G>C and CRBN rs1705814T>C significantly associated with lower probability of achievement of clinical response (≥PR) to lenalidomide-based therapy using dominant inheritance model (OR=0.25, 95%CI 0.10-0.63; p=0.0033, Bonferroni corrected p=0.019 and OR=0.21, 95%CI 0.07-0.61; p=0.0041, Bonferroni corrected p=0.024, respectively). Moreover, in concordance with these findings one of these two SNPs, namely CRBN rs1705814T>C, was also significantly associated with shorter PFS in the analyzed group of lenalidomide treated MM patients (OR=2.49; 95%CI 1.31-4.74; P=0.0054, Bonferroni corrected p=0.032). In contrast, none of the tested allelic variants of CRBN showed significant influence on OS. Conclusions: Taken together, our observations suggest that selected germline CRBN SNPs (rs1714327G>C and rs1705814T>C) affect lenalidomide efficacy in relapsed/refractory MM. Further studies are needed to explain functional mechanisms underlying these associations as well as to establish whether CRBN genetic variants may be useful as potential biomarkers for IMiDs-based therapy. Acknowledgments: This work was supported by the grants of Polish Young Heamatologists Club and Polish Myeloma Consortium. The work of Pawe³ Gaj was supported by a grant from the European Commission 7th Framework Programme: FP7-REGPOT-2012-CT2012-316254-BASTION Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Gene expression profiling can be used for predicting survival in multiple myeloma (MM) and identifying patients who will benefit from particular types of therapy. Some germline single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) act as expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) showing strong associations with gene expression levels. We performed an association study to test whether eQTLs of genes reported to be associated with prognosis of MM patients are directly associated with measures of adverse outcome.

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Objectives Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is a lymphoproliferative disease with heterogeneous clinical course. Recent studies revealed a link between NOTCH1 mutation and the overexpression of MYC and MYC-related genes involved in ribosome biogenesis and protein biosynthesis, such as nucleophosmin-1 (NPM1), in CLL cells. In the present study, we aim to evaluate the impact of the NOTCH1 mutation on the MYC and MYC induced NPM1 expression in CLL cells via quantification of their transcripts. Methods Using qRT-PCR, we analyzed the levels of MYC and three main NPM1 splice variants in 214 samples collected from CLL patients. We assessed the impact of each splice variant on CLL prognostic markers, including the IGHV, TP53, NOTCH1, SF3B1, and MYD88 mutational status, cytogenetic aberrations, and laboratory features. Results Significantly higher levels of NPM1.R1 transcripts in patients with unmutated compared to mutated IGHV status were found. The median time to first treatment (TTFT) in patients with a high level of NPM1.R1 was significantly shorter compared to the group with low NPM1.R1 levels (1.5 vs 33 months, p = 0.0002). Moreover, in Multivariate Cox Proportional Hazard Regression Model NPM1.R1 splice variant provided an independent prognostic value for TTFT. Conclusion In conclusion, our study indicates the prognostic significance of the level of NPM1.R1 expression and suggests the importance of splicing alterations in the pathogenesis of CLL.

Dasatinib inhibits the breakpoint cluster region-Abelson murine leukemia 1 ( BCR-ABL1 ) gene along with other kinases known to be overexpressed and abnormally active in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). The current study used primary leukemic cells obtained from 53 patients with CLL that were treated with dasatinib. A 2,3-bis-(2-methoxy-4-nitro-5-sulfophenyl)-2H-tetrazolium-5-carboxanilide (XTT) assay and Annexin V staining was performed to assess the cytotoxic effects of dasatinib treatment. The XTT assay revealed that the median cytotoxicity of dasatinib was 8.30% (range, 0.00–77.89%). Due to high dispersion of dasatinib activity, patients were divided into sensitive (n=27; 50.94%; median cytotoxicity, 22.81%) and resistant groups (n=26; 49.06%; median cytotoxicity, 0.00%). A median cytotoxicity of 8.30% was selected as a cut off value. Using Annexin V staining and flow cytometry on exemplary sensitive and resistant CLL samples, it was revealed that 17.71 and 1.84% of cells were apoptotic, respectively. The current study presented a case of a patient with concomitant occurrence of CLL and chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) with a major molecular response after dasatinib treatment. A simultaneous reduction of circulating CLL cells indicated in vivo anti-CLL activity induced by dasatinib. After an in vitro culture of the patient's mononuclear cells with subsequent dasatinib treatment, a higher percentage of CLL cells undergoing apoptosis was obsevered when compared with untreated samples (38.19 vs. 21.99%, respectively). Similarly, the percentage of CLL apoptotic cells (ΔΨm low ) measured by chloromethyl-X-rosamine was higher after incubation with dasatinib (7.28%) than in the negative control (2.86%). In conclusion, dasatinib induced antileukemic effects against CML and CLL cells. The results of the current study indicated that dasatinib may induce apoptosis ex vivo, in vitro and in vivo in CLL.

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