Impact of minimal residual disease on progression-free survival outcomes after fixed-duration ibrutinib-venetoclax versus chlorambucil-obinutuzumab in the GLOW study

The analysis of the phase III GLOW trial presented at the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting found that fixed-duration ibrutinib and venetoclax resulted in high rates of undetectable measurable residual (uMRD) disease at 3 months after the end of treatment when compared with chlorambucil and obinutuzumab in treatment-naive patients with CLL who were aged 65 and older and/or who had comorbidities. Undetectable MRD at < 10^-5 by bone marrow testing was observed in 40.6% of patients in the ibrutinib/venetoclax group vs 7.6% of those in the chlorambucil/obinutuzumab group and in 43.4% vs 18.1%, respectively, when using peripheral blood. The peripheral blood uMRD response was sustained at < 10^-5 1 year after treatment end in 80.4% vs 26.3% of patients, respectively.