Introduction

Adult T-cell leukemia-lymphoma (ATL) is a mature T-cell lymphoproliferative neoplasm caused by human T-cell leukemia virus type-1infection. There is no standard treatment for relapsed or refractory (r/r) ATL and clinical outcomes are poor. This systematic review examined the survival outcomes for r/r ATL treated with various systemic therapies.

Methods

EMBASE and PubMed were searched for studies on r/r ATL, published between January 2010 and January 2020. The main outcome of interest was overall survival (OS). Median OS and an exploratory 30% OS time were assessed based on published data and Kaplan-Meier curves.

Results

There were 21 unique treatment subgroups (from 14 studies), that met the eligibility criteria. Nine subgroups were mogamulizumab treatment, two were mogamulizumab prior to allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT), five were allo-HSCT and five were other chemotherapy. Respectively, the median OS and 30% OS varied considerably in range for mogamulizumab treatment (2.2-17.6 months and 8.7-27.1 months), allo-HSCT (3.8-6.2 months and 7.5-19.8 months), and other chemotherapy arms (4.1-20.3 months and 7.1-17.0 months).

Conclusion

Mogamulizumab was the most frequently studied treatment regimen and can potentially provide longer survival compared to chemotherapy alone. Future comparisons with synthetic or historical control arms may enable clearer insights into treatment efficacy.