Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma (DLBCL) Treatment and Research News

/in , , , , , , , /by

Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma (DLBCL) Treatment and Research News from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

What’s the latest diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) treatment and research news? Dr. Jean Koff explains study findings shared at the recent American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2021 meeting and what they could mean for the future of DBCL treatments.

Dr. Jean Koff is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Hematology and Oncology at Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University. Learn more about Dr. Koff, here.

See More From The Pro-Active DLBCL Patient Toolkit

Related Programs:

What Is Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma (DLBCL)?

Transcript:

Katherine Banwell:

Cancer researchers came together recently to share findings at the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting. Also known as ASCO. Are there highlights from the meeting that patients should know about?

Dr. Koff:

Well, I think at every meeting, there are lots of exciting updates to possible treatments for DLBCL. I think with the recent ASCO meeting, what a lot of researchers and clinicians are excited about are treatments in the relapse setting for DLBCL. So, there may be shifts where we are more likely to use immunotherapies known as CAR T-cells rather than what we have standardly used for patients who have relapsed after their frontline therapy.

So, that’s one of the exciting updates and we’re eager to see more details on this data. But one of the other exciting areas that we’re following closely in and ask were there several updates are a newer class of drugs, a type of immunotherapy known as fites. And these are immunotherapies that help to target the lymphoma by binding to a marker on the lymphoma tumor surface and recruiting your own immune system to attack the lymphoma. And so, we’re getting more results from clinical trials from lots of these types of agents that are showing very promising results in patients who have relapsed DLBCL.

Katherine Banwell:

What are you excited about when it comes to DLBCL research?

Dr. Koff:

So, I’m very excited about what we call precision medicine.

Which is matching a variety of treatments that we have to what is best for an individual patient. Based on the factors we talked about, like the patient level factors, but more importantly the tumor level factors. Things like gene abnormalities or even abnormalities in the patient’s immune system. We’re still in the infancy of really getting a good understanding of how these molecular factors might be matched to an ideal treatment. But that to me is really the future is matching these patients based on their tumor profiles with a treatment that is the most likely to control the lymphoma, get rid of the lymphoma and offer patients a cure.

How Is Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma (DLBCL) Treated?

/in , , , , , , , /by

How Is Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma (DLBCL) Treated? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo. 

How is diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) treated? Dr. Jean Koff shares insight about DLBCL treatment types, factors to consider in determining treatment options, reviews approaches for relapsed disease, and explains the role of clinical trials.

Dr. Jean Koff is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Hematology and Oncology at Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University. Learn more about Dr. Koff, here.

See More From The Pro-Active DLBCL Patient Toolkit

Related Programs:

Should DLBCL Patients Consider a Second Opinion?

Transcript:

Katherine Banwell:

In general, then Dr. Koff, how is DLBCL treated?

Dr. Koff:

So, in general for patients who are getting their first-line therapy, they will receive some sort of combination of chemotherapy and what we call immunotherapy. For the vast majority of patients who are young and otherwise, healthy this will be a combination chemotherapy regimen known as R-CHOP.

Which consists of three what I call conventional chemotherapy drugs, an immunotherapy called cyclophosphamide and a steroid known as prednisone.

Katherine Banwell:

What are the main factors you take into consideration before a treatment approaches decided on? You mentioned age, health.

Dr. Koff:

Yes. So, I divide it into three different categories. The first category is the patient. So, there are patient factors that determine what treatments the patient is able to tolerate. And some of the main factors you mentioned are items like age or what we call co-morbidities, which are other health problems that the patient may have. But there may be other factors as well.

If a patient is not able to take care of themselves very well, because they’re very ill or they’re very debilitated or they’re unable to receive certain treatments because they have social factors that keep them from coming to certain centers or from following-up with care. Those all fall under that patient-centered bracket.

The next factor that I consider are items related to the lymphoma itself. So, we’ve already mentioned factors like, expression of different genes or having certain gene abnormalities. Those may play a role in determining what treatment a patient gets. And then, the last big category is where the lymphoma is in the body. And this refers, generally if the lymphoma is only in one limited site. Then those patients may get fewer cycles of chemotherapy, less time in chemotherapy and may receive radiation as part of their frontline treatment.

Whereas patients who have disease in more than one site who are spread out across the body, make it more cycles of chemotherapy. But also there are patients who have lymphoma in certain sites that requires that we give additional treatment to make sure that the disease in those special sites is treated

Katherine Banwell:

Where do clinical trials fit in, Dr. Koff?

Dr. Koff:

So, our goal in treating diffuse Large B-cell lymphoma in the first-line setting in somebody who’s newly diagnosed in most patients, our goal is to cure. Meaning that we treat the patient with chemo immunotherapy. And our goal is that the lymphoma never comes back, goes away and never comes back. Unfortunately, as of today we’re not able to cure every single patient. And depending on what factors you have in your disease, your likelihood that you will be cured with that first-line therapy may be higher or lower.

But until we’re able to cure every single patient with our first-line therapy, there is definitely room for improvement. And that’s where clinical trials feature in. Because the way that we are able to tell whether new therapies or new approaches to therapies are improving upon our goal of curing or our goal of controlling the lymphoma. We need to test them very rigorously in clinical trials.

Katherine Banwell:

Of course. Now what about for patients with relapsed disease?

Dr. Koff:

So, there are several different approaches that we use to patients who have relapsed depending on a lot of different factors that may play into a particular case. I would argue that in this case, clinical trials are even more important.

Because although we can still treat with the goal of cure for a relapsed patients with DLBCL, the likelihood that somebody will be cured after they’ve received their frontline therapy goes down, regardless of the factors related to the case. And so, this is a setting where it’s even more important that we improve upon our current strategies of treatment and our current treatments that we have available in clinical trials again are the way that we move forward with this.