Ensuring Safe Bispecific Antibody Use in Lymphoma at Community Practices

According to Joanna M. Rhodes, MD, MSCE, it is possible to administer bispecific antibodies to patients with lymphoma and other malignancies in a community setting, although this process requires a “fair amount of legwork. "

CancerNetwork® spoke with Rhodes, director of the Lymphoma Program and system head of Lymphoma at Rutgers Cancer Institute and an assistant professor of medicine at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, about a session she moderated at the 2024 Annual Oncology Clinical Practice and Research Summit. In this session, panelists from her institution discussed the use of bispecific antibodies for patients with cancer in a community oncology practice.

According to Rhodes, bispecific antibodies may see more frequent use in a community setting, as investigators are currently assessing the use of these agents in earlier lines of therapy across various lymphoma populations. She noted the possibility of toxicities such as cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS), emphasizing the implementation of effective protocols to ensure that patients can safely receive these agents as they continue to move to earlier lines of treatment.

Transcript:

We’re going to see bispecifics more frequently [in the community setting]. They’re now being studied in frontline treatment settings across lymphoma indications. The thing that’s most important to me is to ensure that patients can access these safely. We do know that with CRS and ICANS—although we’re much better at managing them now than when these phenomena were originally seen in CAR T-cell therapy, for example—there still can be severe toxicities. Being mindful of that and having good protocols in place to ensure patient safety is of the utmost importance, even as these [treatments] move into earlier lines of therapy.

I want people to take away that we can give bispecific antibodies from start to finish in a community setting. It just requires a fair amount of legwork at the beginning, as well as harmonization of protocols across the health care system.

Reference

Rhodes JM, Eltoukhy H, Phillips A, Shah MR. Management of bispecific antibodies: a focus on community oncology. Presented at the 2024 Annual Oncology Clinical Practice and Research Summit; November 15-16, 2024; New Brunswick, NJ.