Introduction: SARS-COV-2 pandemic has infected approximately 20 million people worldwide and more than 700.000 fatalities have been reported. Patients with malignant hematological diseases are at particular risk for unfavorable outcomes, including intensive care unit (ICU) admission, need for mechanical ventilation (MV) and death. There is paucity of data of the outcome of cancer patients with COVID-19 in low- and middle-income countries. GELL is a collaborative network of hematological centers in 13 countries in Latin America. In this retrospective study, we aimed to look at the outcome of lymphoma patients diagnosed with COVID-19 in Latin America. Methods: This is a retrospective study including patients with a diagnosis of lymphoma and COVID-19 infection. Patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma were excluded from the analysis. COVID-19 diagnosis was done by RT-PCR in all but 3 patients, in whom the diagnosis was done by serology. Active disease was defined as patients with detected disease in any setting (prior to therapy, relapse) or patients currently on treatment. Survival curves were plotted using Kaplan Meier method. Results: A total of 117 patients were available for analysis. Median age was 60 years old, and 44% of patients had at least one comorbidity, including 32% with hypertension, 17% with obesity, 11% with cardiovascular disease and 17% with diabetes. Most patients had aggressive lymphomas (67%), including 46% of patients with diffuse large B-Cell lymphoma (DLBCL). Follicular lymphomas was observed in 13% of patients and Hodgkin's lymphoma in 10% of patients. 84% of patients had active disease, and 70% of patients were currently on treatment. With a median follow up of 17 days from COVID-19 diagnosis, 78% were admitted to Hospital, 30% needed ICU support, and 27% needed MV. Importantly, 26% of patients died, most of them within 20 days from diagnosis (Fig. 1). There was no relation between active disease (p=0.23), current treatment (p=0.65) or use of monoclonal antibodies (p=0.24) with death. COVID-19 treatment data was available in 107 patients, and 72 of them received any treatment, being steroids, the most common treatment used (n=59). Conclusion: We confirm the dismal prognosis of patients with hematological malignancies and COVID-19 infection. In our cohort of Latin America patients with lymphoma and COVID-19, 26% of patients died with a median follow up of 17 days. No impact of current treatment or use of monoclonal antibodies were observed. Figure Disclosures Peña: Janssen: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau; Sandoz: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Roche: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Abbvie: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Amgen: Speakers Bureau; BindingSite: Research Funding. Idrobo:Amgen: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Abbvie: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Janssen: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Tecnofarma: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Takeda: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau. Abello:Novartis: Consultancy, Honoraria; Amgen: Consultancy, Research Funding; Takeda: Honoraria, Research Funding; Dr. Reddy's: Consultancy, Research Funding; Abbvie: Consultancy, Research Funding. Rojas:Novartis: Consultancy; Abbvie: Honoraria; Sandoz: Honoraria; Roche: Honoraria. Castillo:Beigene: Consultancy, Research Funding; Abbvie: Research Funding; Pharmacyclics: Consultancy, Research Funding; TG Therapeutics: Research Funding; Kymera: Consultancy; Janssen: Consultancy, Research Funding. Villela:amgen: Speakers Bureau; Roche: Other: advisory board, Speakers Bureau.
Introduction:The role of interim positron emission tomography (PET) as a predictor for progression free survival (PFS) in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) remains controversial. The incorporation of volumetric and quantitative parameters aims to improve the identification of patients with high risk for treatment failure. Recently, the role of ΔSUVmax, defined as the reduction between the maximum uptake at initial PET and interim-PET (iPET) has been tested as a predictor for PFS. In most studies, a cutoff of 66% reduction successfully identified patients at high risk for treatment failure. We aimed to analyze the role of ΔSUVmax in predicting relapse in a cohort of Brazilian patients with DLBCL, and the impact of COO in this analysis. Methods:We retrospectively analyzed a cohort of patients with DLBCL from Sao Paulo, Brazil. All diagnosis were made by the same hemepathologists, and COO was defined using Hans algorithm. PET scans were obtained at baseline and after 2-3 cycles (iPET) of CHOP-like chemoimmunotherapy. All PET-CTs were read by the same physician, blinded for COO and patient's clinical features. ΔSUVmax was calculated by the difference in % between initial PET SUVmax and iPET. Initially, a cutoff of 66% reduction was used for analysis, but due to low number of patients not achieving a 66% reduction in the activated B-cell (ABC) subgroup, the optimal cutoff was selected based on the ROC curve. ResultsA total of 54 patients were available for analysis. Median age of all patients was 61 years old, and 61% of patients had a germinal center B-Cell (GCB) phenotype. The median maximum uptake at baseline was 31 for the germinal B-cell (GCB) and 34.1 for the activated B-Cell (ABC) phenotype. For all patients, ΔSUVmax <66 was strongly related to relapse (HR=0.065, p=0.0005). In the GCB cohort (n=33), ΔSUVmax <66 was also strongly related to relapse (H=0.02, p=0.0004). In the ABC cohort (n=21), only one patient failed to achieve ΔSUVmax>66. A ROC curve identified a ΔSUVmax>90 as a better cutoff for relapse, and patients not achieving 90% reduction had a higher risk for relapse (p=0.03). MYC/Bcl-2 expression was also compared, and ΔSUVmax <66 was related to events in both double-expressors (DE, p=0.0003) and in non-DE(p=0.036) ConclusionA reduction <66% in SUVmax from baseline PET to iPET was strongly related to the risk of relapse in a cohort of 54 patients with DLBCL. However, the cutoff of 66% was only significant in patients with GCB DLBCL, mostly due to the low number of ABC patients who did not reach a 66% in SUVmax. For ABC patients, a ΔSUVmax>90 improved the identification of patients at high risk for relapse. Larger cohort of patients are needed to validate our exploratory findings. Figure Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.
Introduction: Since 1990, Brazil has implemented a unified public health care, but access to specialized care remains a major challenge, especially due to delays in diagnosis and access to specialized centers. In order to help cancer care access, Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, a private hospital, has implemented a public cancer clinic in Sao Paulo, only 11km apart. In an unprecedent situation in Sao Paulo, both public and private hospitals share most of the facilities, including laboratory, pathology, radiology, radiotherapy, pharmacy and medical team. Moreover, treatment protocols are the same and most drugs are also available in the public system. With 1 year of operation of the public clinic, we aim to analyze the outcome of patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) compared with historical data from the private hospital. Moreover, since patients are only admitted after a confirmed cancer diagnosis, we aim to look at the impact of delayed diagnosis in the outcome of the patients. Method: This is a retrospective study comparing the clinical features, treatment and outcome of patients with DLBCL treated in the public system with historical data from the private system. In order to minimize the impact of treatment protocols, only patients treated between January 2016 and February 2020 were used for historical comparison. All biopsies were reviewed by the same hemepathologist. Time to treatment initiation (TTI) time was defined by the number of days between biopsy and the first day of treatment cycle. Time from symptom onset to medical consultation (TSTC) was also calculated. Survival rates were estimated by Kaplan-Meier and differences assessed by log-rank test. Results: In one year of operation, 23 patients with DLBCL were treated in the public clinic (PC) and were compared with 41 patients from the private hospital (PH), for a total of 64 patients. Clinical features were similar between PC and PH, and for all patients, median age was 61 years (range: 27-91), 76% with PS of 0-1, 78% with advanced stage and 45% with B-symptoms. Median R-IPI was 3 for both cohorts and approximately 50% of patients in both cohorts presented with R-IPI of 3 to 5. Interestingly, a difference in the cell-of-origin (COO) was observed between both cohorts, with a higher number of germinal center B-cell lymphoma in the PC (82% vs 52%, respectively, p=0.0041). TSTC was significantly higher in the PC compared to PH (160 vs 30 respectively, p<0.001), and it was mostly impacted by the delay in obtaining the biopsy result. Moreover, TTI was higher in the PC compared with PH (7 vs 39, respectively, p<0.0001) and was most impacted by the delay in receiving biopsy slides for review. With a median follow up of 18 months, 1 year-EFS was 76% and 1 year-OS was 86%for all cohort, with no statistical difference between public and private hospitals (p=0.40 and 0.20, respectively). Conclusion: In our cohort of patients from public and private settings treated equally by the same resources, there was no difference in the outcome of patients. Despite TSTC and TTI were higher for patients from the public setting, no difference in survival was observed, and this may be partially explained by an enriched cohort of GCB DLBCL in the public system. The extremely low number of ABC DLBCL (4/23) is uncommon and suspicious for mortality of these patients before access to specialized care. Figure Disclosures Perini: Janssen, Takeda: Honoraria; AbbVie, Janssen: Speakers Bureau.
Updated analysis confirms sustained poor prognosis of COVID-19 in patients with lymphoma in Latin America: A cohort of 160 patients from GELL. Introduction: Ongoing SARS-COV-2 pandemic has impacted the management of cancer patients worldwide. Several reports have demonstrated inferior outcomes of patients with hematological malignancies, including higher rates of intensive care unit admission, need for mechanical ventilation and death. The impact of COVID-19 is profound in resource-restricted countries, including Latin America. Most cohorts reported have not included patients from Latin America, and there is paucity of data of the outcome of cancer patients with COVID-19 in low- and middle-income countries. Grupo de Estudio De Linfoproliferativos En Latino-America (GELL )is a collaborative network of hematological centers in 13 countries in Latin America. We report updated outcomes of lymphoma patients diagnosed with COVID-19 in Latin America. Methods: We conducted a retrospective study including patients with a diagnosis of lymphoma and COVID-19 infection. Patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma were excluded from the analysis We defined active disease as follow: (1) patients with detectable disease either prior to initiating therapy or upon relapse, and/or (2) patients undergoing active cancer treatment. The primary outcome was overall survival at 100 days. Survival curves were estimated using the Kaplan Meier method. Uni and multivariable analysis were carried out with Cox model. Results: A total of 160 patients were available for analysis. Median age was 60 years old. Hypertension was the most common comorbidity (33%). Most patients had aggressive lymphomas (62%), including 43% of patients with diffuse large B-Cell lymphoma (DLBCL). Follicular lymphomas were observed in 13% of patients and Hodgkin lymphoma in 12.5% of patients. With a median follow-up of 37 days, the 100-day OS was 64% (95CI 56-74%, fig. 1). In univariate analysis, age (HR 1.03, p=0.0025), hypertension (HR 2.01, p=0.017), >1 number of prior lines (HR 2.78, p=0.011), patients currently on treatment (HR 1.83, p=0.043), ferritin >2000 ng/mL (HR 4.74 p=0.00047) were associated with inferior OS. In multivariate analysis, age (HR 1.03, p=0.0026) and patients currently on treatment (HR 1.82, p=0.04) had inferior OS. There was a trend towards inferior outcomes in patients receiving monoclonal antibodies in univariate analysis (HR 1.82, p=0.081) but not in multivariable analysis (HR=1.29, p=0.48). Use of steroids was not statistically related to mortality (HR 1.79, p=0.074). Finally, contrary to other cohorts, no improvement in OS was observed in patients diagnosed later on the pandemic (fig. 2). Conclusion: In this large cohort of Latin American patients with lymphoma malignancies, our updated analysis showed a maintained dismal prognosis with COVID-19 infection. With a median follow up of 37 days, the 100-day OS was 64%. Older age and ongoing active cancer treatment were significantly associated with mortality. The use of monoclonal antibodies and systemic corticosteroids were not statistically associated to poor survival. Current efforts are focused on improving immunization in the Latin American population. There is an unmet need for improving survival in patients with hematologic malignancies and COVID-19 infection. Figure 1 Figure 1. Disclosures Perini: Janssen: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Takeda: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Astra Zeneca: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; MSD: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau. Otero: ASTRA ZENECA: Current Employment. Abello: Dr Reddy's: Research Funding; Amgen: Honoraria; Janssen: Honoraria. Castillo: Abbvie: Consultancy, Research Funding; BeiGene: Consultancy, Research Funding; Pharmacyclics: Consultancy, Research Funding; Janssen: Consultancy; Roche: Consultancy; TG Therapeutics: Research Funding.
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