A trial looking at obinutuzumab and CHOP for diffuse large B cell lymphoma (GOYA)

Cancer type:

Blood cancers

High grade lymphoma

Non-Hodgkin lymphoma

Status:

Results

Phase:

Phase 3

This trial looked at obinutuzumab and CHOP chemotherapy for diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL).

It was for people having their first treatment for DLBCL.

The trial was open for people to join between 2011 and 2014. The team published the results in 2020.

More about this trial

Doctors often treat diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) with R-CHOP. This is a combination of chemotherapy drugs and a targeted cancer drug Open a glossary item called rituximab.

Sometimes the lymphoma comes back after R-CHOP. So researchers were looking for ways to improve treatment. In this trial they looked at adding a drug called obinutuzumab (GA101) to CHOP chemotherapy. Obinutuzumab was a new drug when this trial was done.

Obinutuzumab (Gazyvaro) is a targeted cancer drug Open a glossary item called a monoclonal antibody . It works in a similar way to rituximab. Doctors weren’t sure how well obinutuzumab would work so they did this trial to find out more.

This was a phase 3 trial Open a glossary item . Of the people who took part:

half had rituximab and CHOP chemotherapy (R-CHOP)
half had obinutuzumab and CHOP chemotherapy (G-CHOP)

Everyone had up to 6 to 8 cycles of treatment. Open a glossary item

The main aims of the trial were to find out:

which treatment works best
more about the side effects

Summary of results

A total of 1,414 people were put into a treatment group at random Open a glossary item :

710 had rituximab and CHOP chemotherapy (R-CHOP)
704 had obinutuzumab and CHOP chemotherapy (G-CHOP)

At 5 years the team looked at:

the number of people whose lymphoma had started to grow again
how long people lived
how well the lymphoma responded to treatment

They didn’t find a difference between the 2 groups in any of these.

Side effects
The team say the side effects were as expected.

Most people had at least 1 side effect from treatment. But some of these were mild or didn’t last long.

Some people had more severe side effects. This was:

461 out of 701 people (65.8%) in the R-CHOP group
527 out of 702 people (75.1%) in the G-CHOP group

The more severe side effects of R-CHOP and G-CHOP included:

a drop in the number of white blood cells and neutrophils . This can cause an increased risk of infection.
a drop in the number of neutrophils with a temperature (fever). This is called febrile neutropenia.

These side effects were a bit worse in those who had G-CHOP.

We have more information about the side effects of R-CHOP.

Conclusion
The trial team found that G-CHOP didn’t work better than R-CHOP for diffuse B-cell lymphoma. This was for people who hadn’t yet had treatment.

Sometimes trials show a different treatment isn’t useful for a particular type or stage of cancer Open a glossary item . But these trials still add to our knowledge and understanding of cancer and how to treat it.

More detailed information
There is more information about this research in the reference below.

Please note, the information we link to here is not in plain English. It has been written for healthcare professionals and researchers.

A randomized, open-label, Phase III study of obinutuzumab or rituximab plus CHOP in patients with previously untreated diffuse large B-Cell lymphoma: final analysis of GOYA
L Sehn and others
Journal of Hematology and Oncology, 2020. Volume 13, issue 71.

Where this information comes from
We have based this summary on the information in the article above. This has been reviewed by independent specialists (peer reviewed Open a glossary item ) and published in a medical journal. We have not analysed the data ourselves. As far as we are aware, the link we list above is active and the article is free and available to view.