Treatments for relapsed-refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma: comparison of overall survival outcomes observed with four novel agents

OBJECTIVE: Tafasitamab, loncastuximab, tesirine, polatuzumab, and selinexor have been proposed for the treatment of relapsed/refractory B-cell lymphomas. We studied the patterns of overall survival (OS) for these four agents. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We reconstructed patient-level data from the published Kaplan-Meier OS graphs. For this purpose. we used an artificial intelligence technique (the Shiny method). Reconstructed survival curves were then subjected to standard statistics to perform between-treatment comparisons, and hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated. RESULTS: Using tafasitamab plus lenalidomide as a common comparator, our analysis of OS yielded the following results: a) Polatuzumab vedotin vs. tafasitamab + lenalidomide: HR=1.60 (95%CI, 0.94-2.74, p=0.0831); b) Selinexor vs. tafasitamab + lenalidomide: HR=2.28 (95%CI, 1.54-3.38, p<0.001): c) Loncastuximab tesirine vs. tafasitamab + lenalidomide: HR=2.35 (95%Cl, 1.55-3.56. p<0.001). All three values favored tafasitamab + lenalidomide. CONCLUSIONS: These comparative OS results represent the original findings. Although these comparisons were indirect, our analysis offered a useful synthesis of the outcomes reported thus far for these four treatments.