A clinical research team led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute reports that a combination of three molecularly targeted drugs is active against chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), a form of blood cell cancer that primarily affects older adults. The experimental triplet therapy — including a second-generation inhibitor of BTK (acalabrutinib), an inhibitor of BCL-2 (venetoclax), and a CD20 inhibitor (obinutuzumab) — was evaluated in a single-arm, phase 2 clinical trial of 37 patients with CLL who had not previously received treatment. As the researchers describe in Lancet Oncology, 86 percent of trial participants demonstrated a significant response over the course of the two-year study: no minimal residual disease (MRD) could be detected in these patients’ bone marrow using sensitive cellular tests, a key predictor of progression-free survival.
