What are the most common adverse events associated with brentuximab vedotin?

FAQ published on January 15, 2014
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Tim Illidge, BSc, PhD, MRCP, FRCR, FRCPath
Professor of Targeted Therapy and Oncology
School of Cancer and Imaging Sciences
University of Manchester
Manchester Academic Health Science Centre
Manchester Cancer Research Centre
The Christie NHS Foundation Trust
Manchester, United Kingdom
What are the most common adverse events associated with brentuximab vedotin?

Hello, my name is Dr. Tim Illidge. I work as the professor of Targeted Therapy and Oncology at the University of Manchester, The Christie Hospital in the United Kingdom. A question that I am frequently asked is what are the most common adverse events associated with brentuximab vedotin, a targeted antibody drug conjugate used in the treatment of CD30 malignancies. The most common adverse event seen is neutropenia. However, perhaps the most difficult of the adverse events is the peripheral neuropathy, which in the pivotal study was seen in around 40% of patients, with a significant number having grade I and II peripheral neuropathy and a small number having grade III neuropathy. Importantly, for those patients that developed peripheral neuropathy when the drug dose was lowered and there were dose delays from 3 weeks to 4 weeks and the dose reduction from 1.8 mg/kg to 1.2 mg/kg, there was a resolution of the lymphadenopathy, a complete resolution in 50% of the patients with an improvement in 80% of the patients that have peripheral neuropathy. That is an important part of the clinical management of these patients to be aware of the peripheral neuropathy and to manage this appropriately with dose reductions and dose delays if they are required. Thank you for your attention.

Last modified: January 15, 2014
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