Outcomes of Brexucabtagene Autoleucel in Relapsed/Refractory Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Patients with CNS Involvement.

Abstract

Relapsed/Refractory (r/r) B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients with central nervous system involvement (CNS B-ALL) have poor outcomes and were frequently excluded from CD19-targeting chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR T-cell) clinical trials. The efficacy and safety of brexucabtagene autoleucel (brexu-cel) in adults with r/r B-ALL was established by the ZUMA-3 trial, which excluded patients with advanced or symptomatic CNS involvement. In this retrospective multicenter analysis, we investigated the safety and efficacy of brexu-cel in CNS B-ALL patients utilizing data from the Real-World Outcomes Collaborative for CAR T in ALL (ROCCA) consortium. Of 189 patients infused, 31 had CNS-2 (presence of blasts in CSF with < 5 WBC/uL) or CNS-3 (presence of blasts with >5 WBC/uL and/or clinical signs/symptoms) disease pre-apheresis and are the focus of this report. The median age was 46.5 years (range, 24-76), and 58.1% were males. Most (87.1%) received bridging therapy. Following brexu-cel, 21 of 24 with CNS restaging (87.5%) achieved CNS-1. Additionally, 28 of 30 evaluable patients achieved marrow complete remission (CR); 25 were MRD-negative. No statistically significant differences were seen in progression-free survival (PFS) or overall survival (OS) following brexu-cel among patients with or without CNS involvement. Similarly, grade 3-4 immune effector cell associated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS) occurred similarly in patients with (35.5%) and without CNS disease (30%). In conclusion, our data suggest that brexu-cel results in high response rates in CNS B-ALL patients with toxicity comparable to patients without CNS involvement.