Mosunetuzumab monotherapy is active and tolerable in patients with relapsed/refractory Richter's transformation.
Richter's transformation (RT) to diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is an aggressive lymphoma arising from underlying chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) or small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL). RT is often chemorefractory, with resultant poor clinical outcomes with standard chemoimmunotherapy. Mosunetuzumab, a bispecific CD20/CD3 T-cell engaging antibody, was investigated in a cohort of 20 patients with relapsed/refractory RT. Cytokine release syndrome (CRS) occurred in 65%, almost exclusively grade 1 (20%) or 2 (40%) and occurring during the first treatment cycle. Other adverse events included infections, neutropenia, thrombocytopenia, tumor flare and low grade neurotoxicity, with no adverse events leading to treatment discontinuation. Mosunetuzumab resulted in an overall response rate (ORR) 40% and complete response rate (CR) 20%. CRs were durable, with 2 patients experiencing CR >20 months without further therapy, and 2 able to proceed to allogeneic stem cell transplant in CR, with no subsequent relapse. Median progression free and overall survival (PFS and OS) was 3.4 and 10.2 months respectively. Given the favorable toxicity profile of mosunetuzumab, and rapid and durable complete responses observed in this cohort, further investigation of mosunetuzumab for the treatment of RT, as monotherapy and in combination with other novel agents or chemotherapy, is warranted. NCT02500407.
Authors
- Katharine L. Lewis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0549-5877)
- Matthew J. Matasar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4581-3721)
- L. E. Budde
- C. Y. Cheah
- Vibha Raghavan
- Dima El‐Sharkawi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2752-5814)
- Shen Yin
- J.R. Radford
- Iris To
- Matthew Ku
- Michael C. Wei
- Ross Ian Baker
- Sarit E. Assouline
- Pratyush Giri
- Nancy L. Bartlett
- Antonia Kwan
- Stephen J. Schuster
Institutions
- Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (US)
- City Of Hope National Medical Center (US)
- Royal Adelaide Hospital (AU)
- Washington University in St. Louis (US)
- Jewish General Hospital (CA)
- Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital (AU)
- University of Manchester (GB)
- St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne (AU)
- Roche (Canada) (CA)
- Royal Marsden Hospital (GB)
- UPMC Hillman Cancer Center (US)
- The Christie NHS Foundation Trust (GB)
- Rutgers Cancer Institute (US)
- Central Adelaide Local Health Network
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Blood Advances
- Published
- 2026-02-05
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1182/bloodadvances.2025017914
- Primary Topic
- Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Pfizer