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Acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Daratumumab for eradication of minimal residual disease in high-risk advanced relapse of T-cell/CD19/CD22-negative acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Leukemia volume 34, pages 293–295 (2020)Cite this article

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Prognosis of patients with advanced relapse of T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) or CD19/CD22-negative ALL relapsing following allogeneic stem cell transplantation (allo-SCT) is poor. Currently available therapy for relapsed T or CD19/CD22-negative ALL is based on intensive chemotherapy and may lead to complete remission (CR). Among the general ALL population, patients experiencing multiple relapses, central nervous system (CNS) involvement or early relapse after transplant are at a particularly high risk [1, 2]. Moreover, in such patients, detection of minimal residual disease (MRD) following intensive therapy may be predictive of an ultimate disease relapse, if no further effective therapy is prescribed [2].

Given that leukemic blasts commonly express CD38, daratumumab, a recombinant monoclonal antihuman CD38 antibody approved for myeloma therapy, has been suggested to be also potent in acute leukemia. Evidence of daratumumab efficacy in T-ALL has been demonstrated in preclinical studies on the mouse model [3, 4]. To the best of knowledge, there is only one previously reported case of successful remission induction with daratumumab in a patient with Philadelphia chromosome positive refractory B-ALL [5] and one report of MRD eradication in a patient who developed advanced relapse following allo-SCT [6].

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Acknowledgements

We would like to gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Sonia Kamenetsky in the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Hematology and Bone Marrow Transplantation, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa, Israel

    Yishai Ofran, Shimrit Ringelstein-Harlev, Tsila Zuckerman, Dana Yehudai-Ofir, Israel Henig, Ofrat Beyar-Katz, Michal Hayun & Avraham Frisch

  2. The Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel

    Yishai Ofran, Shimrit Ringelstein-Harlev & Tsila Zuckerman

  3. Immunology Laboratory, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa, Israel

    Ilana Slouzkey

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  1. Yishai Ofran
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Contributions

YO: designed research, interpreted data, wrote the paper, approved its final version. SR-H, IS, TZ, DY-O, IH, OB-K, MH, and AF: performed research, approved its final version of the paper.

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Correspondence to Yishai Ofran.

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Ofran, Y., Ringelstein-Harlev, S., Slouzkey, I. et al. Daratumumab for eradication of minimal residual disease in high-risk advanced relapse of T-cell/CD19/CD22-negative acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Leukemia 34, 293–295 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41375-019-0548-z

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