Bendamustine With Rituximab Is Safe And Effective As Front Line Therapy In Elderly B-Cll Patients. An Italian Retrospective Multicenter Experience

The front-line therapy for CLL young and fit patients is chemo-immunotherapy with Fludarabine-Cyclophosphamide and Rituximab (FCR). However, around three quarter of the patients with a newly diagnosed CLL are 65 years or older, with approximately 42% being older than 75 years and with age-related comorbidities. FCR regimen results in a significant myelosuppression and high rates of early and late infections. Hence, other less toxic regimens are under evaluation. Recently the German CLL study group reported an interim analysis of the CLL10 trial, who compared FCR vs Bendamustine-Rituximab (BR). The response rates to the 1st-line treatment with BR or FCR were comparable, and BR could be an alternative 1st-line treatment for medically fit pts. Notably, this study showed that pts treated with BR were often older (median 71 vs. 65 yrs; p<0.0001) and frequently with comorbidities (67% vs. 62%), suggesting that it may be a suitable option for this wide subpopulation. Here we report retrospective data from 12 Italian centres focused on the evaluation of efficacy and safety of BR in elderly SLL/CLL patients.