Plain language summary of the ZUMA-5 study of axicabtagene ciloleucel for people with relapsed or refractory slow-growing non-Hodgkin lymphoma

What is this summary about? This is a summary of a clinical study called ZUMA-5. The study looked at how well the cancer treatment axicabtagene ciloleucel (axi-cel) worked for people with indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma (iNHL), including follicular lymphoma (FL) and marginal zone lymphoma (MZL). FL and MZL are cancers that affect a type of white blood cell called a B cell. Axi-cel is a type of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy. Axi-cel is made from a person’s own immune cells and helps the body fight cancer. How was the study conducted? The ZUMA-5 study included 159 people with iNHL (127 with FL and 31 with MZL). The trial participants were people whose cancer had come back after treatment or whose cancer had not responded to their first treatment. All people had received at least 2 previous treatments for their cancer. Researchers looked at how well axi-cel worked and what side effects people had after treatment. People in this trial have been followed for over 5 years. What were the results? After about 5 years, 90% of people had responded to treatment. For 75% of people, their cancer completely went away. At 5 years, 50% of people were alive without the cancer getting worse or coming back. Around 7 in 10 people were still alive 5 years after treatment. At 5 years, more than half of people were both alive and had not needed any further cancer treatment in the 5 years since their axi-cel treatment. The most common side effects of axi-cel happened soon after treatment and were related to an overactive immune response and changes in how the brain and nervous system work. These side effects were usually temporary. At 5 years, 15% of patients had died due to causes not related to their cancer, with infections being the most common cause. What do the results mean? Axi-cel helped about half of people with FL or MZL live without their cancer getting worse or needing more treatment. These results suggest that axi-cel may offer long-term disease control for many people with these cancers. The side effects were mostly manageable and occurred early after treatment, with very few new side effects in the long term. Clinical trial number: NCT03105336