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VIDEO: 'Intriguing' Data in Lymphoma Emerge From ASH
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SAN DIEGO — John Sweetenham, MD, executive medical director at Huntsman Cancer Institute at University of Utah and HemOnc Today’s Chief Medical Editor for Hematology, provides an overview of key studies from the ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition that relate to lymphoma treatment.
He discusses an analysis from NCI about dose-adjusted EPOCH–rituximab (Rituxan, Genentech) therapy for patients with aggressive lymphomas.
“There has been very good data to suggest this is a highly active regimen in patients with highly proliferative lymphomas because of the infusional nature of the chemotherapy, and also because of the dose-dynamic approach that is used,” Sweetenham said.
He also discusses a large randomized trial from the Alliance Group that compared R-CHOP with rituximab plus dose-adjusted EPOCH, as well as a 10-year retrospective review by Southwest Oncology Group of the randomized 0016 study, a randomized trial for patients with follicular lymphoma. Patients in the 0016 study were treated with R-CHOP, and then underwent either radioimmunotherapy or maintenance rituximab.
“With very long follow-up, a higher proportion of patients who entered onto this study are in a continuing complete remission after many years,” Sweetenham said. “This is intriguing in that it indicates intensive treatment of advanced follicular lymphoma in some patients may lead to very durable remissions and potentially even cure. In my mind, that is one of the more exciting pieces of data to emerge from ASH this year.” – by Kristie L. Kahl