Bendamustine Continues to Impress

This month, some new trial data came available that continues to illustrate the advantages of the "new" alkylating agent bendamustine (Treanda). Bendamustine is a nitrogen mustard agent that was developed in East Germany in the 1960s. Despite being a very old communist drug, it is now a very new capitalist drug, with the price tag and brand name to boot. It's effective enough that there are now a number of trials looking at whether bendamustine can stand in for the more conventional chemotherapy regimens like CHOP (in combination, of course, with new drugs of choice like rituximab).

In Canada, there are currently five ongoing clinical trials involving bendamustine that are looking for test subjects with lymphoma. These include an ofatumumab trial in refractory patients (bendamustine versus O-B), a GA101 study in refractory patients (bendamustine versus B-GA101) the major BRIGHT Study for new patients (B-R going head to head with the older standbys, R-CHOP and R-CVP). A sixth trial is looking at bendamustine in childhood leukemia patients.