The Impact of cytoreduction on blinatumomab outcomes for relapsed or refractory B-ALL with high disease burden

This study investigated the impact of reducing disease burden before administering blinatumomab to adult patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Researchers retrospectively analyzed 148 patients, categorizing them by initial disease burden and whether they received pre-treatment cytoreduction. The findings indicated that patients with a lower disease burden had better responses to blinatumomab. While cytoreductive therapy significantly lowered the incidence of cytokine release syndrome in high disease burden patients, it did not improve overall treatment response, MRD negativity, or neurotoxicity. Ultimately, the research suggests that new approaches are still needed to improve the effectiveness of blinatumomab for patients with a high disease burden, despite the safety benefits of prior cytoreduction.