VANDA regimen followed by blinatumomab leads to favourable outcome in patients with Philadelphia chromosome‐negative B‐precursor acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in first relapse

Abstract Adults with relapsed or refractory B‐precursor acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (R/R BCP‐ALL) have very poor outcome. Blinatumomab as single agent has shown activity in R/R BCP‐ALL. We aimed to assess the activity of blinatumomab in concomitant association with intensive chemotherapy. Seventeen patients with R/R BCP‐ALL were treated with combination of blinatumomab and VANDA (etoposide, cytarabine, mitoxantrone, dexamethasone and asparaginase) regimen. Complete remission (CR) was achieved in 14/17 patient (82%) and 11/17 (65%) were transplanted. One‐year leukaemia‐free survival was 58.8% for the whole cohort and 90.9% for transplanted patients. These preliminary data suggest that the VANDA‐blinatumomab salvage regimen leads to a very high rate of CR and HSCT in suitable patients.