Prof Christopher Fox speaks to ecancer about results from the phase 3 EPCORE DLBCL-1 trial comparing epcoritamab monotherapy with investigator’s choice chemoimmunotherapy in patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma.

He reports that epcoritamab significantly improved progression-free survival and achieved higher complete response rates than standard chemoimmunotherapy. Responses were also more durable, with patients experiencing substantially longer durations of response and requiring fewer subsequent treatments.

Dr Fox explains that overall survival was not significantly different between the treatment groups, although interpretation was complicated by COVID-19-related mortality and the use of subsequent therapies such as CAR-T cells and other bispecific antibodies.