Abstract
Tremendous progress in the therapy of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) has been achieved through combination cytotoxic chemotherapy, leading to high cure rates, at the cost of significant life-threatening toxicity. The bispecific T-cell engager blinatumomab, recently approved for relapsed/refractory ALL, has a unique nonmyelotoxic toxicity profile. As blinatumomab causes B-cell depletion, the safety of its use during severe chemotherapy-induced toxicity is unclear. We report 11 pediatric patients with ALL, treated with blinatumomab following overwhelming chemotherapy-associated toxicity, with recovery of all patients and successful bridging to further antileukemia therapy. Blinatumomab can be considered for rare patients who cannot tolerate cytotoxic therapy.
Original language | American English |
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Article number | e27898 |
Journal | Pediatric Blood and Cancer |
Volume | 66 |
Issue number | 10 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by the Israel Cancer Association and Amutat Chaim.
Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Israeli Society of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology, the Israel Cancer Association, and Amu-tat Chaim. We thank Dina Kugel for the data collection. We wish to acknowledge all pediatric hematology-oncology departments in Israel for their devoted care of these patients.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Keywords
- blinatumomab
- childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia
- immunotherapy
- treatment-related toxicity