ICML 2015 Poster Session: Healthcare utilisation in the AETHERA trial: phase 3 study of brentuximab vedotin in patients at increased risk of residual Hodgkin lymphoma post-ASCT

Vijayveer Bonthapally et al, Cambridge, MA, USA  / by Maria Dalby.  AETHERA is a randomised, placebo-controlled phase III study to evaluate whether consolidation treatment with brentuximab vedotin can prevent relapse in HL patients who have undergone autologous stem cell transplantation.

Patients were randomised to receive BV, 1.8mg/kg (n=99) or placebo (n=97) for 16 cycles after autologous stem cell transplantation. Healthcare resource utilisation, including the total number of hospitalisations, outpatient visits and missed days of work or other activity for the patient or care giver was calculated from the date of informed consent until the 24 months after the first study treatment. Patients in the BV group had a total of 176 hospitalisations compared with 198 in the placebo arm, equivalent to a rate of 0.58 and 0.65 hospitalisations per patient-year, respectively. The outpatient visit rate per patient-year was 8.84 in the BV group compared with 12.43 in the placebo group. Patients in the BV group missed a median of 15 days from work or other activity, compared with 26 in the placebo group.

This trend towards lower healthcare resource utilisation with BV needs to be confirmed in further analyses.