# Efficiency and Safety of Brentuximab Vedotine as a Salvage Treatment Before Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation in Patients With Relapsed or Refractory Classic Hodgkin Lymphoma: Retrospective Study

## TL;DR

This study compares the effectiveness and safety of brentuximab vedotine versus standard chemotherapy in treating hard-to-cure Hodgkin lymphoma patients before a stem cell transplant.

## Contribution

The study provides evidence that brentuximab vedotine is as effective and safe as standard chemotherapy for salvage treatment before stem cell transplantation in high-risk Hodgkin lymphoma patients.

## Key findings

- Brentuximab vedotine achieved a 63.2% complete response rate in salvage treatment before stem cell transplantation.
- Outcomes like progression-free and overall survival were similar between brentuximab vedotine and standard chemotherapy groups.
- Neurological side effects were comparable between the two treatment groups.

## Abstract

There is no strong evidence supporting brentuximab vedotine (BV) efficacy as a salvage regimen for relapsed/refractory Hodgkin’s lymphoma (R/R HL) patients before autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation (auto‐HCT).

We performed multicenter retrospective analysis of efficiency of treatment with the BV monotherapy as salvage regimen versus standard salvage chemotherapy (sCT) in 44 patients with R/R HL from a high‐risk group.

Twenty‐six patients (59.1%) had primary refractory disease. Nineteen patients (43.2%) received BV salvage treatment before auto‐HCT, and 12 (63.6%) achieved complete response (CR) that counts 27.3% of the whole study cohort. There was no difference in the CR rate, 2‐year progression‐free survival, and 2‐year overall survival after BV salvage and sCT (63.2% vs. 60%, respectively, p = 0.35; 88.2% vs. 80.7%, p = 0.655; 94.1% vs. 100%, p = 0.735, respectively). There was no difference in neuropathy of all grades, including Grades 2‐3 between groups.

The BV as a salvage treatment showed quite high efficiency. Despite a worse clinical characteristic of the BV group, there were no significant differences in the outcomes of the auto‐HCT with respect to the salvage regimen (BV versus sCT) used before auto‐HCT. Our results suggest that BV before auto‐HCT in patients refractory to standard 2nd line treatment equalizes their prognosis to the patient sensitive to standard CT with the same tolerance and toxicity.