LYMPHOMAS

Quick progress was seen with a novel class of agents, chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies, in the setting of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma—a swift jump from early phase clinical trials to FDA-approved products.

Despite decades of drug development and a deepening understanding of the biology of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, physicians haven’t seen much improvement in cure rates, Thomas E. Witzig, MD, said during a presentation at the 2018 SOHO Annual Meeting.

Axicabtagene ciloleucel (axi-cel; Yescarta) has been approved by the European Commission as a treatment for adult patients with relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma or primary mediastinal large B-cell lymphoma, following at least 2 lines of systemic therapy. 

Second-Line Therapy in Extranodal Marginal Zone Lymphoma

Tisagenlecleucel has gained approval from the European Commission as a treatment for adult patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma that is relapsed or refractory after 2 or more lines of systemic therapy, or patients up to 25 years of age with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia that is refractory, in relapse posttransplant, or in second or later relapse.

During a presentation at the American Association for Cancer Research’s inaugural Advances in Malignant Lymphoma meeting, Mehta-Shah, associate professor in the Department of Medicine with Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, presented preliminary data showing how new pathway-dependent strategies using novel agent combinations may represent a new way to treat patients with T-cell lymphomas.

Targeting EZH2, the catalytic subunit of the multiprotein PRC2, may represent an attractive therapeutic objective in malignant lymphoma, Vincent Ribrag, MD, told his audience at the American Association for Cancer Research’s inaugural Advances in Malignant Lymphoma meeting.

Mogamulizumab-kpkc (Poteligeo) has been approved by the FDA as a treatment for patients with cutaneous T-cell lymphoma who have received at least 1 prior systemic therapy.

Now that chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies have received FDA approval for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) after moving quickly through early phase clinical trials, research is now exploring ways to shift these agents earlier in the treatment paradigm, according to a discussion at the 2nd Annual Live Medical Crossfire on Hematologic Malignancies.

Michael Wang, MD, discusses what he hopes to find in the ZUMA-2 trial and his belief that MCL can be cured in his lifetime.

Progression-free survival was not improved by combining pixantrone with rituximab compared with gemcitabine plus rituximab in patients with aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma enrolled in the phase III PIX306 trial, according to CTI BioPharma, the manufacturer of pixantrone.