VIDEO: CD19-directed cellular therapy shows promise in non-Hodgkin lymphoma

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.

This was a particularly exciting year for non-Hodgkin lymphoma. We heard a number of abstracts ranging from those describing novel therapies, novel oral therapies, to some silent therapy abstracts, which stand to significantly change the way we manage patients moving forward. For patients with indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the outcomes using CD19-directed CAR T cell presented by Karen Jacobson were really outstanding and I think we're really on the precipice of incorporating CD19-directed cellular therapy with CAR T cells in patients with follicular lymphoma as well as marginal zone lymphoma. I was very excited to see those results, patients tended to tolerate therapy quite well, and there were a number of long-term responses. In addition, Novel BTK inhibitor LOXO 315 was presented both for CLL as well as for non-Hodgkin lymphomas and this appears to be a very well tolerated agent with high response rates. And particularly exciting is that this appears to be effective even in those patients who have previously received a BTK inhibitor. And so while this is not currently FDA approved I do expect that in the coming period of time it will become FDA approved and will be a novel therapy for patients even those that have previously received a BTK inhibitor. And then finally, for patients with aggressive lymphoma there were two abstracts presented which were large retrospective reviews of the use of CNS directive prophylaxis in patients with aggressive lymphoma. Both of these projects really highlighted the fact that our current approach to CNS prophylaxis is likely inadequate. It is unclear which patients truly require CNS prophylaxis. And also it is unclear that the regimens that we are currently using which is typically either intrathecal methotrexate or high dose intravenous methotrexate are really changing outcomes for patients. And so these were very exciting new abstracts which I think really set the table for new studies of novel agents that may improve our ability to prevent CNS relapse.