Cardiovascular adverse events in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia receiving acalabrutinib monotherapy: pooled analysis of 762 patients. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • Cardiovascular (CV) toxicities of the Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor ibrutinib may limit use of this effective therapy in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Acalabrutinib is a second-generation BTK inhibitor with greater BTK selectivity. This analysis characterizes pooled CV adverse events (AEs) data in patients with CLL who received acalabrutinib monotherapy in clinical trials (NCT02029443; NCT02475681; NCT02970318; NCT02337829). Acalabrutinib was given orally at total daily doses of 100-400 mg, later switched to 100 mg twice daily, and continued until disease progression or toxicity. Data from 762 patients (median age: 67 years [range, 32-89]; median follow-up: 25.9 months [range, 0-58.5]) were analyzed. Cardiac AEs of any grade were reported in 129 patients (17%; grade ≥3, n=37 [5%]) and led to treatment discontinuation in 7 patients (1%). The most common any-grade cardiac AEs were atrial fibrillation/flutter (5%), palpitations (3%), and tachycardia (2%). Overall, 91% of patients with cardiac AEs had CV risk factors before acalabrutinib treatment. Among 38 patients with atrial fibrillation/flutter events, 7 (18%) had prior history of arrhythmia or atrial fibrillation/flutter. Hypertension AEs were reported in 67 patients (9%), 43 (64%) of whom had a preexisting history of hypertension; no patients discontinued treatment due to hypertension. No sudden cardiac deaths were reported. Overall, these data demonstrate a low incidence of new-onset cardiac AEs with acalabrutinib in patients with CLL. Findings from the head-to-head, randomized trial of ibrutinib and acalabrutinib in patients with high-risk CLL (NCT02477696) will prospectively assess differences in CV toxicity between the two agents.

publication date

  • September 30, 2021

Research

keywords

  • Atrial Fibrillation
  • Hypertension
  • Leukemia, Lymphocytic, Chronic, B-Cell

Identity

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.3324/haematol.2021.278901

PubMed ID

  • 34587719