Highlights

In the UK, certainly our options [for first-line therapy] are limited to R-CHOP, so most patients with advanced-stage DLBCL would typically be treated with six cycles of rituximab combined with CHOP chemotherapy.

I think it’s exciting to have an additional option [R-Pola-CHP] in the first-line setting. I think it’s clear from the study that it’s a 6–7% increase in PFS at two years. There are certain groups of patients where the addition or substitution of polatuzumab did not seem to add benefit, so the GCB patients was a group, younger patients less than the age of 60–65 if I remember rightly, and also patients with bulky disease, obviously these are subgroup analyses and the study wasn’t powered for such analysis. So, my feeling is that there is probably a subgroup of patients where R-Pola-CHP is going to potentially be an alternative first-line option for these groups of patients.

Again, it [bendamustine] is typically used in the second-line setting. I’ve used it in combination with R-bendapolatuzumab, I’m not a fan of it, but we do use it and I slowly reduce it in patients just because of how myelosuppressive it is.