Review Article Page 1 of 11 Venetoclax for the treatment of mantle cell lymphoma Victor S. Lin1, Mary Ann Anderson2,3, David C. S. Huang3, Andrew W. Roberts1,2,3, John F. Seymour1,2, Constantine S. L. Tam1,2,4 1Department of Medicine, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia; 2Department of Haematology, Royal Melbourne Hospital and Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Parkville, Australia; 3Division of Cancer and Haematology, The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Parkville, Australia; 4Department of Haematology, St Vincent’s Hospital, Fitzroy, Australia Contributions: (I) Conception and design: All authors; (II) Administrative support: None; (III) Provision of study materials or patients: None; (IV) Collection and assembly of data: None; (V) Data analysis and interpretation: None; (VI) Manuscript writing: All authors; (VII) Final approval of manuscript: All authors. Correspondence to: Mary Ann Anderson. 1G, Royal Parade, Parkville, 3052 Victoria, Australia. Email:
[email protected]. Abstract: While the last decade has seen an explosion in improved therapies for mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), the outlook for patients with relapsed or refractory MCL (R/R MCL) remains poor, especially for those who are older with comorbidities or harbour dysfunction in the TP53 pathway. MCL is one of the B cell malignancies in which there is a high frequency of BCL2 overexpression, and the selective BCL2 inhibitor venetoclax has shown particular promise in the treatment of patients with R/R MCL. As a single agent, the drug is associated with a close to 80% response rate in early phase studies. However, secondary progression due to the development of resistance remains a limiting factor in the usefulness of this agent.