Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Ibrutinib is an irreversible inhibitor of Bruton tyrosine kinase in the B-cell receptor signaling pathway. In randomized trials, ibrutinib is effective as first-line treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)/ small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL) (compared with chlorambucil), 1 for relapsed/refractory CLL/SLL (compared with ofatumumab or combined with bendamustine/rituximab), 2,3 or for relapsed/refractory mantle cell lymphoma (compared with temsiroliums), 4 with promising results in the treatment of Waldenstrm macroglobulinemia. It is anticipated that ibrutinib will become an important part of the therapeutic armamentarium for these conditions. Randomized trials suggest that ibrutinib may increase the risk of atrial fibrillation (AF) as compared with chlorambucil 1 or ofatumumab. 2 In the general population, AF is strongly associated with heart failure and arterial thromboembolism, which result in substantial morbidity and mortality. There is uncertainty over the magnitude of the increase in AF risk attributable to ibrutinib because the absolute numbers of incident AF cases are small in individual studies.
Leong et al. (Wed,) studied this question.