Efficacy and safety of ibrutinib in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma: A single-arm meta-analysis

This study aimed to evaluate the benefits and risks of patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) treated with ibrutinib. PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and ClinicalTrials.gov were searched for relevant studies. The pooled overall response (OR), complete response (CR), and partial response (PR) were 57.9 %, 35.0 %, and 20.1 %, respectively. The pooled OR and CR of ibrutinib monotherapy were 41.6 % and 15.2 % and of ibrutinib + rituximab-based therapy were 72.0 % and 47.5 %, respectively. The relapsed/refractory DLBCL achieved a pooled OR and CR of 49.7 % and 27.7 %, respectively. The pooled OR and CR were 64.2 % and 56.9 % in non-germinal center B-cell-like (non-GCB) DLBCL and 68.3 % and 36.0 % in relapsed/refractory central nervous system lymphoma (CNSL), respectively. The pooled median progression-free and overall survival were 4.54 months and 11.5 months, respectively. 70.7 % and 52.6 % patients experienced ≥ grade 3 adverse events and serious adverse events. The ibrutinib-contained therapy was well tolerated and showed the potential to improve tumor response of patients with non-GCB DLBCL and relapsed/refractory CNSL.