Rusconi C, et al. - Via this retrospective analysis, researchers examined a multi-center series of consecutive patients with central nervous system (CNS) relapse of systemic mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) to assess results of patients who received ibrutinib vs patients treated with a standard chemotherapy (CT), described in the MANTLE-FIRST study. They estimated overall survival and progression-free survival (PFS) from the time of initiation of treatment for CNS-MCL. Overall there were 31 patients, 16 (52%) treated with conventional CT (standard cohort), and 15 (48%) treated with ibrutinib monotherapy (ibrutinib cohort). In the standard cohort and in the ibrutinib cohort, the median age was 54 years (range: 39-70) and 60 years (range: 54-76), respectively. For CNS-MCL, the efficacy of ibrutinib monotherapy was shown in this study. Treatment with ibrutinib vs standard chemoimmunotherapy provided a benefit in PFS in CNS-MCL patients. The difference in 1-year PFS was significantly in favor of ibrutinib vs standard CT (49% vs 6%).