Although Hodgkin Reed-Sternberg (HRS) cells comprise only a small number of tumor cells, their number is outweighed by their relative importance as the orchestrators of an inflammatory microenvironment that allows for the growth of Hodgkin Lymphoma (HL). The peritumoral CD4 and CD8 cells in patients with HL, display high expression of the receptor programmed death-1 (PD-1). PD-1 is involved in the functional impairment and “exhaustion” of T-cells. Recent data confirms that the effects of HL-mediated immune suppression may stretch beyond the tumor microenvironment, with reports of high levels of inflammatory cytokines and chemokines in patients with both newly diagnosed and relapsed HL.
In results presented from an abstract presented during the 2014 American Society of Hematology conference (ASH), we found that HL patients have evidence of chronic activation/exhaustion in their central memory and effector T-cells. Informed consent was requested for correlative blood testing was obtained from patients with both newly diagnosed and relapsed HL. For patients with progressive disease persistence of this phenotype is worthy of further investigation as to whether immune dysfunction results from or is caused by resistance to therapy. An answer to this question may provide the rationale for an immune targeted therapy in patients with relapsed or resistance HL.
New Developments in Lymphoma 