Plasma levels of BCMA-positive extracellular vesicles correlate to response and side effects in myeloma patients treated with belantamab-mafodotin.

ABSTRACT: In myeloma patients, high levels of soluble BCMA (sBCMA) can limit the efficacy of BCMA-directed therapies. Belantamab-mafodotin is a BCMA antibody-drug conjugate and shows good overall response rates in heavily pretreated patients but progression-free survival data are poor. As the drug induces apoptosis, we hypothesized that sBCMA includes extracellular vesicles (EV) and thus evaluated numbers of BCMA-EV before and during belantamab therapy in 10 myeloma patients. BCMA-EV were significantly higher in patients prior to Belantamab (median: 3227/μl; p = .013) than in other myeloma patients before therapy (n = 10; 1082/μl) or healthy volunteers (n = 10; 980/μl). During therapy, BCMA-EV showed a significant increase to a maximum of 8292/μl (p = .028). Maximal chang

SUBMITTER: Springer C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10691812 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature