Lymphoma

In this installment of In Practice, Leo I. Gordon, MD, FACP, co-director of the hematologic malignancies program at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and medical director of the John and Lillian Matthews Center for Cellular Therapy at Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the challenges and best practices from the time the decision is made to seek chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy until the genetically engineered T cells are infused back into the patient.

Ann LaCasce, MD, MMSc, medical oncologist, director of the Dana-Farber/Partners CancerCare Hematology-Medical Oncology Fellowship Program, and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, spoke with Healio about the importance of fertility preservation when treating young women with lymphoma, considerations when treating pregnant women, the link between radiation treatment and breast cancer risk, and the greatest areas of unmet needs in lymphoma.

Since the discovery of the CD30 molecule in 1982, progress has been made in the treatment and survival outcomes for patients with CD30-positive disease. Nearly 30 years after this discovery, brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris, Seattle Genetics), an antibody targeting CD30, was approved by the FDA.

The American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy published an expert panel opinion document on the use of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies for patients with relapsed or refractory aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Patients with psoriasis carry a slightly increased risk for cancer, particularly keratinocyte cancer and lymphomas, according to data published in JAMA Dermatology.

Patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma experienced clinically meaningful improvements in long-term quality-of-life measurements after responding to an infusion of tisagenlecleucel, according to a post hoc analysis of patient-reported outcomes in the JULIET trial published in Blood Advances.

AUSTIN, Texas — While a small risk for lymphoma exists in children with inflammatory bowel disease, occurrences are relatively rare, according to data presented at the Crohn’s and Colitis Congress.

Since having the good fortune to take on an editorial role for HemOnc Today, I have resisted the temptation to use the January editorial to provide a summary of highlights from ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition, or to enter the “reflective zone” at the turn of the year. Both seem a little predictable and formulaic.

ORLANDO — Two major impediments to widespread adoption of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies are their cost and antigen loss that makes them less effective over time. An allogeneic approach that combines CARs and natural killer cells into one therapy may be the solution, according to preclinical research presented at ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition.

ORLANDO — Inflammatory bowel disease is a life-altering condition that takes a lifetime of care. Adding it to another life-altering disease, like cancer, makes management decisions much more complicated for physicians, according to experts.