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Description

This activity is supported by an independent education grant from Genmab. This online education program has been designed for healthcare professionals in the USA. The information in this program is not suitable for any other country.

Join expert Paolo Strati, MD, as he provides evidence-based strategies to identify, grade, and manage toxicities associated with CD20×CD3 bispecific antibodies in lymphoma. This session reviews the kinetics and clinical presentation of cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and neurotoxicity/immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS), outlines standardized grading and intervention algorithms including corticosteroid and tocilizumab use, and highlights crucial infection prophylaxis protocols.

This is Module Three of Four. Modules One, Two, and Four can be found here.

Session Highlights

  • CRS Recognition and Severity Grading: Differentiating CRS from infusion-related reactions and sepsis, utilizing standardized grading criteria from fever onset to hemodynamic compromise.
  • Stepwise Management & Escalation Algorithms: Applying evidence-based interventions across CRS grades, including antipyretics, dexamethasone regimens, tocilizumab administration, and ICU transfer criteria.
  • Neurotoxicity & ICE Score Assessment: Identifying subtle signs of ICANS and utilizing the 10-point Immune Effector Cell Encephalopathy (ICE) screening tool to direct rapid neurological intervention.
  • Prophylaxis and Infection Surveillance: Implementing essential risk-mitigation strategies, including HBV screening, routine PJP and VZV prophylaxis, immunoglobulin monitoring, and management of treatment-emergent cytopenias.

Target Audience

This activity is intended for community-based healthcare professionals involved in the management and delivery of care for patients with relapsed/refractory (R/R) diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and R/R follicular lymphoma (FL), including community oncologists, community hematologists and hematology-oncologists, advanced practice providers (APPs), nurse practitioners, oncology nurses, pharmacists, and multidisciplinary care team members involved in treatment delivery and monitoring.

Faculty

Paolo Strati, MD - Associate Professor in the Departments of Lymphoma/Myeloma and Translational Molecular Pathology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he also serves as Co-Chair of the Scientific Review Committee for the Division of Clinical Research. Specializing in indolent B-cell lymphomas and cellular immunotherapies, Dr. Strati leads clinical and translational research focused on novel immune cell therapies, CAR-T cell approaches, and tumor microenvironment targeted strategies. A decorated investigator supported by the NIH and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, he serves on editorial boards for leading journals—including Blood and Blood Advances—and actively contributes to national working groups within ASTCT, ASCO, and CIBMTR.

Disclosures

Partners for Advancing Clinical Education (Partners) requires every individual in a position to control educational content to disclose all financial relationships with ineligible companies that have occurred within the past 24 months. Ineligible companies are organizations whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.

All relevant financial relationships for anyone with the ability to control the content of this educational activity are listed below and have been mitigated according to Partners policies. Others involved in the planning of this activity have no relevant financial relationships.

Dr Paolo Strati, faculty for this educational activity, has the following relevant financial relationships: Advisory Board for Abbvie-Genmab, ADC Therapeutics, Astrazeneca Acerta, BeOne, Incyte, Kite-Gilead, Lilly, Merck, Novartis, Regeneron, Roche-Genentech, and Sobi; Consultant for Abbvie-Genmab, ADC Therapeutics, Astrazeneca Acerta, BeOne, Incyte, Kite-Gilead, Lilly, Merck, Novartis, Regeneron, Roche-Genentech, and Sobi; Grant/Research Support from ADC Therapeutics, ALX Oncology, Astrazeneca Acerta, Kite-Gilead, Leukemia Lymphoma Society (now Blood Cancer United), and Sobi.

The MedAll staff, program planners, and reviewers have no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies to disclose.

Joint Accreditation Statement

In support of improving patient care, this activity has been planned and implemented by Partners for Advancing Clinical Education (Partners) and MedAll. Partners is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.

Physician Continuing Education

Partners designates this enduring material for a maximum of 0.25 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

PA Continuing Medical Education

Partners has been authorized by the American Academy of PAs (AAPA) to award AAPA Category 1 CME credit for activities planned in accordance with AAPA CME Criteria. This activity is designated for 0.25 AAPA Category 1 CME credits. Approval is valid until October 27, 2027. PAs should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation.

Nursing Continuing Professional Development

The maximum number of hours awarded for this Nursing Continuing Professional Development activity is 0.25 ANCC contact hours.

Pharmacy Continuing Education

Partners designates this continuing education activity for 0.25 contact hour(s) (0.025 CEUs) of the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education.

Universal Activity Number - TBA

Type of Activity: Application

For Pharmacists: Upon successfully completing the post-test with a score of 75% or better and the activity evaluation form, transcript information will be sent to the NABP CPE Monitor Service within 4 weeks.

Disclosure of Unlabeled Use

This educational activity may contain discussion of published and/or investigational uses of agents that are not indicated by the FDA. The planners of this activity do not recommend the use of any agent outside of the labeled indications. The opinions expressed in the educational activity are those of the faculty and do not necessarily represent the views of the planners. Please refer to the official prescribing information for each product for discussion of approved indications, contraindications, and warnings.

Disclaimer

Participants have an implied responsibility to use the newly acquired information to enhance patient outcomes and their own professional development. The information presented in this activity is not meant to serve as a guideline for patient management. Any procedures, medications, or other courses of diagnosis or treatment discussed or suggested in this activity should not be used by clinicians without evaluation of their patient’s conditions and possible contraindications and/or dangers in use, review of any applicable manufacturer’s product information, and comparison with recommendations of other authorities.

Instructions for Credit

Participation in this self-study activity should be completed in approximately 0.25 hour(s). To successfully complete this activity and receive CE credit, learners must follow these steps during the period from November 3, 2026 through to October 27, 2027.

  1. Review the objectives and disclosures
  2. Study the educational content
  3. Successfully complete activity post-test(s)
  4. Complete the activity evaluation

For Pharmacists: Upon successfully completing the post-test with a score of 75% or better and the online evaluation, your credit will be submitted to CPE Monitor. Please check your NABP account within thirty (30) days to make sure the credit has been posted.

This continuing education activity is active starting November 3, 2026 and will expire on October 27, 2027.

Estimated time to complete this activity: 15 Minutes

Learning objectives

  1. Apply evidence-based approaches to patient identification, treatment selection, and treatment sequencing for patients with R/R DLBCL and R/R FL.

  2. Implement standardised treatment initiation pathways, including step-up dosing protocols and outpatient administration strategies where appropriate.

  3. Use evidence-based management strategies to recognise, grade, and manage CRS, ICANS, and infectious complications associated with bispecific antibody therapy.

  4. Develop multidisciplinary workflows and operational strategies that support sustainable community-based delivery of bispecific antibody therapy.

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Computer generated transcript

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The following transcript was generated automatically from the content and has not been checked or corrected manually.

Hello everybody. My name is Paolo Strati. I'm an associate professor in the department of lymphoma and meeloma at the University of Texas and the Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. One point that I would like to make as we start is that when it comes to uh managing by specific associated toxicities, the management actually starts even before we start treatment, though of course it will continue uh through toxicity recognition, grading, and management, and that's because we have to make a real effort to try to prevent as much as possible any toxicity with the use of biospecifics. So of course it's always key as we plan to start treatment to have baseline blood work so that we can subsequently better understand how clinically relevant are the changes that we will see during treatment. Uh, it is important for patients that we will consider to be high risk for by specific associated complications, mainly those who have high tumor burden. To be identified as early as possible because these are the patients where we may decide no matter what's the FDA label maybe to do inpatient hospitalization and monitoring and then when it comes to risk mitigation strategies, they tend to be part of the drug label per se and I'll show you later for specific by specific antibodies the way and the type of corticosteroids that we utilize for CRS mitigation. Or anti-CD20 monoclonal antibodies that we utilize for uh the same goal are different, uh, but again they're very well detailed in the drug label. Now with that said, once we start treatment, it's very important that we are familiar with the typical acute complications of bi-specifics in large basal lymphoma and follicular lymphoma, which are currently the only two histologies in which anti-CD3, CD20, bi-specifics are formally approved by the FDA. The first one is cytogen release syndrome or CRS, and I'll show you in a second, uh, how it will present clinically. And the second one is neurotoxicity, also known as immune affector cell associated neurotoxicity syndrome or IIS. I have to start by saying that we tend to extrapolate these terms from the CRT cell experience. And many times we made the incorrect assumption that the pathophysiology and grading and measurement is the same. But very recently, uh, a new grading and management system has been developed by Doctor Crombie and a large group of farm investigators. I encourage you all to actually read up, uh, this black publication from now, a couple of years ago. That's really been critical for particularly, uh, our colleagues in the community to be able to move the utilization of bi-specific safely from academia to community oncology. Now, the rate of CRS and neurotoxicity tends to be with bi-specific much different than what we experienced with CRT. There are currently 3 anti-CD3 CD20 bi-specifics approved by the FDA for either large-basal lymphoma and or follicular lymphoma, glofetumab just for large-basal lymphoma, musulitudinum just for follicular lymphoma. And a coriamab for both in the, uh, in Europe, Odronexamab is also available for Bal and Hodgkin lymphoma, but I will focus on the three currently approved by the FDA in the United States. The point that I want to make is that differently from CART, where particularly if you're using a CART cell product with the CD28 co-simulatory domain, the chance of neurotoxicity can be really high, 60% or above. Neurotoxicity or ICAs is not really the big problem when it comes to biospecifics. But it tends to be mainly CRS and CRS happens typically during cycle one. And as you will see later, this is really crucial, particularly for non-lymphoma specialized providers who will take care of these patients to know so that they can properly address this as compared to an infectious complication. It's also important to know the typical uh time to median onset of CRS based on the product that you utilize. And as you can see, uh, can be in the order of 12 hours when it comes to products such as clopiumab, uh, but Uh, close to 24 hours or longer when it comes to products such as the Coritama. So by then patients actually may have most likely have left the infusion center and may be back home. Neurotoxicity again, while present and possible by specifics is way less common. If you look into the three main products currently approved by the FDA in the United States, no more than 5 to 8% of patients will experience neurotoxicity, and it tends to be mainly low grade, grade 1 or 2. And once again, if it happens, it typically happens during cycle one. Now keeping that in mind, how does CRS present? The typical presentation is fever. That's actually the condisio sineconon, the necessary factor for the definition of CRS. Now that can be a major compounding factor because these patients are typically patients who have been treated before with something else that have a hematological malignancy such as lymphoma. So every time they spike a fever, while we can make the assumption, particularly during cycle one and particularly within 12 to 24 hours after by specific infusion or injection that it could be a CRS, we have to keep in mind that these patients are immunocompromised. So we have to keep our differential as wide as possible and also consider infectious complications. Now when it comes to grading, this will be a low grade, grade one, if it's just fever, typically with a temperature of 100.4 or if you think in Celsius 38, as long as no hypotension and no hypoxemia are associated. But as soon as any of these additional changes in vital signs are observed, based on the depth of intervention that they require, it could be just hydration, but as, uh, severe as vasopressor utilization for hypotension and as simple as nasal cannula or as severe as ventilation for hypoxemia, the grading will go up. Now, that's where the key difference between CRS from biospecifics and CRS from CRT comes into place and where we really need to go beyond the misconception that these two have a similar pathophysiology and or management because they don't. So when it comes to CRS, about 90% of patients can actually manage over the phone at home. And less than 10% truly required to come to the hospital for uh more intensive management. And the reason is mainly that again this is tends to be mainly just fever and so most of the times we're able to tell patients to take at home Tylenol and then if the fever comes back within 8 hours they can use dexamethasone 10 mg once. And not if the fever either doesn't respond to Tylenol and or dexamethasone, or if it occurs too early within 6 to 8 hours on dexamethasone, that's a sign that even if it's just fever, they may require something more such as tosilidzumab, which is a monoclonal antibody target interleukin 6, which is one of the key mediators of CRS both for by specifics and CRT and cannot be given at home. So that of course it's a a scenario where grade 1 CRS patients will need to come to the hospital. But about 90% of patients are able to stay at home just by taking Tylenol and or dexamethasone. If, of course, when they call in addition to fever, they also have hypoxemia or hypotension and or symptoms suggestive of one of those, most of the times it's not actually safe to manage them over the phone and they do need to come to the hospital because again, tocilium might be required in addition to potentially higher doses of corticosteroids and given by me. So this brings to my first polling question. Sue calls the practice 12 hours after step up dosing with a temperature of 101 °F of more than 38 °C and new dizziness. So every time a patient reports dizziness, of course this could be a sign of associated hypoxemia and or hypotension. She's the artist lady very properly, I think, because even if we're missing the other vital signs because she may have a, a CRS grade higher than one, in, uh, through the established pathway on assessment, uh, she develops hypotension, the response to IV fluids without the need for vasopressors or supplemental oxygen requirements. How should this presentation be classified and managed? Is this grade 1 CRS? And so we just provide symptomatic treatment and continue close outpatient observation. Is this grade 2 CRS? So we initiate management according to the established CRS pathway and monitor closely for progression of CRS to a higher grade. Or is this grade 3 CRS and we need to escalate right away to ICU level care with basopressors and or advanced oxygen support. Now what, what you learn from the, from the polling question and from the prior slides is um fever alone could be a grade 1. If combined with low level hypotension or hypoxemia, so requiring just hydration or nasal cannula would be grade 2. If requiring more than that, such as vasopressors, ventilation, or uh higher intensity oxygen support would be in grade 3 or 4. So what is really crucial, every time a patient with fever presents to uh our attention during the set of dosing, so during cycle one, of course, is to collect a very thorough review system, to perform a very thorough physical examination.