Frontline therapy with bendamustine rituximab (BR) and rituximab cyclophosphamide vincristine prednisone (RCVP) confers similar long-term outcomes in patients with treatment naïve Waldenström macroglobulinemia in a real-world setting: a population-based analysis

Abstract

We report on outcomes of 111 patients with treatment naïve Waldenström macroglobulinemia (TN WM) treated with frontline bendamustine–rituximab (BR) (n = 57) or rituximab–cyclophosphamide–vincristine–prednisone (RCVP) (n = 54). Median follow-up was 60.7 months (range 1.9–231.6). Median progression-free survival (PFS) was 60.5 months (95% CI 47.6–73.4) for BR and 79.0 months (95% CI 31.3–126.8) for RCVP (p = .96). Median overall survival (OS) was not reached for BR and 153.4 months (95% CI 114.5–192.4) for RCVP (p = .37). While overall and major response rates did not differ between treatment groups, BR had numerically higher rate of very good partial response or better response (51% vs. 37%, p = .30) and complete response (26% vs. 13%, p = .13). RCVP confers comparable outcomes to BR in a real-world population of TN WM patients and remains an effective regimen, particularly when tolerance or frailty is an issue, or in resource-limited settings.