VIDEO: Promising data on novel therapies in Hodgkin lymphoma presented at ASH 2020

Editor’s note: This is a previously posted video, and the below is an automatically generated transcript to be used for informational purposes. Please notify editor@healio.com if there are concerns regarding accuracy of the transcription.

At last month's ASH annual meeting, which was held virtually, we received several updates in Hodgkin lymphoma as well as Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. In Hodgkin lymphoma, I was particularly excited to see some of the data evaluating the use of PD-1 antibodies earlier on in the course of treatment. And so, for example, the Memorial Sloan Kettering group presented an abstract describing outcomes for patients receiving Pembrolizumab with GVD as salvage therapy for patients with Hodgkin lymphoma. And these findings were quite good. And it was very exciting to see that for many patients this may increase the likelihood that they would be able to make it to a potentially curative autologous STEM cell transplant. And so, I think in general, with Hodgkin lymphoma, we're learning more and more about how best to use some of these novel therapies earlier on in the course of treatment, how best to sequence them, and this was one such study which I found really was quite exciting, and it's something that hopefully will be usable in practice before too much longer. In addition to the use of PD-1 antibodies as well as Brentuximab vedotin which is a CD30 at directed antibody-drug conjugate, there were some newer agents, including a CD25 directed antibody-drug conjugate that were presented at ASH. And the findings were actually quite good. These were patients who had previously received Brentuximab vedotin and a PD-1 antibody, which have historically been patients with a poor prognosis. And the response rate was better than 80% in this study. And so, although more research is needed and we'll need to learn more about how best to use these new agents, it certainly is exciting to see that there are new therapies that are being developed and evaluated for those patients that ultimately receive Brentuximab vedotin, and a PD-1 antibody, but still need some additional therapy.