Lymphoma Awareness

In this video interview, Frederick L. Locke, MD, medical oncologist and translational researcher in the department of blood and marrow transplant and cellular immunotherapy at Moffitt Cancer Center, and member of the Cell Therapy Next Peer Perspective Board, discussed:

• highlights in lymphoma research from this year’s virtual ASCO meeting, including study findings he presented on the efficacy of retreatment with axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta, Kite Pharma/Gilead) CAR T-cell therapy in large B-cell lymphoma;
• the FDA-approved CAR T-cell therapies for lymphoma, including the most recently approved brexucabtagene autoleucel (Tecartus, Kite Pharma/Gilead) for relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma;
• exciting therapies and immunotherapies coming down the pipeline, like ‘off-the-shelf’ allogeneic CAR T-cell therapies and natural killer cells transduced with chimeric antigen receptors;
• greatest areas of unmet need, such as the need to refine biomarkers and methods for risk stratification to determine if CAR T-cell therapy can be administered early, improving the safety and lowering the toxicities of these treatments, and improving access to care; and
• what ‘lymphoma awareness’ means to him – achieving awareness of lymphoma symptoms and educating oncologists and patient advocacy groups that CAR T-cell therapy can be safely administered and may lead to long-term remission, even for older patients.