BACKGROUND: This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitors (BTKis) for central nervous system lymphoma (CNSL).
METHODS: A systematic review was carried out to identify relevant studies from the PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, WanFang, CNKI, and CBM databases. The studies included patients with CNSL who received BTKis and reported the overall response (OR), complete remission (CR), and partial response (PR). An overall effect analysis was performed using STATA 15.0. A random-effects model was utilized to calculate the pooled rates, and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were determined for all outcomes.
RESULTS: A total of 21 studies involving 368 patients were included in the meta-analysis. For newly diagnosed CNSL, due to the small simple size, we conducted a quantitative description, and the ORR could reach up to 100%. For relapsed/refractory patients, the pooled ORR was 72% (95% CI: 64-80%, I = 54.89%, = 0.00), with a pooled CR and PR of 43% (95% CI: 33-54%, I = 65.40%, = 0.00) and 23% (95% CI: 13-35%, I = 78.05%, = 0.00), respectively. Most adverse events were hematology-related and generally manageable.
CONCLUSION: BTKis showed acceptable efficacy and safety in treating patients with CNSL. However, large and well-designed trials are still required to confirm BTKis as a treatment for CNSL.
