Author: lymphomaprogram

Located on the Upper East Side of New York City, the Lymphoma Program at Weill Cornell Medical College/NewYork Presbyterian Hospital is internationally recognized for our efforts to enable patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Hodgkin disease and related disorders to have the best possible clinical outcome, including cure when possible.

CT Scans for Monitoring Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia: Dr Richard Furman Comments in Panel Discussion

In this video from OncLive, CLL Program Director, Dr. Richard Furman joins a panel of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) experts to discuss the practice of using CT scans to monitor CLL.

In agreement with the other members of the panel, Dr. Furman commented,

“One of the additional factors that I think really has to be taken into account, and I couldn’t agree with the both of you more, is that now that our CLL patients have options beyond chemotherapy, their longevity is going to dramatically increase. Radiation tends to have a late effect, and now our patients have a future to be thinking about. And so, I really think doing away with CT scans as much as possible is certainly important. And there’s tremendous overuse of PET scanning, which is really not necessarily more radiation, but it’s the idea that, unless you suspect someone has Richter’s transformation, a PET scan doesn’t really add a lot to the care of the patient. And it really is just unnecessary radiation.”

New Clinical Trial: A Phase 1 Dose-Escalation Study of the Safety and Pharmacokinetics of LAM-002A Administered Orally in Subjects with Relapsed or Refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin Lymphoma

The Weill Cornell Medicine Lymphoma Program has recently opened a new clinical trial for men and women with previously-treated B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma. (B-cell NHL) The study sponsor is LAM Therapeutics, and the principal investigator at Weill Cornell is Sarah Rutherford, M.D.. For more information about the study, please call Rita Gazivoda, RN at 212-746-0702 or e-mail Rita at rig9021@med.cornell.edu.

Study Summary

This clinical trial is for men and women with B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (B-cell NHL) who were previously treated for this disease.

Management of patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma varies widely depending on histology. Patients with DLBCL who relapse after, or who are not candidates for ASCT, as well as patients with relapsed mantle cell lymphoma, marginal zone lymphoma, follicular lymphoma, and chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma (CLL/SLL) are not considered curative with conventional therapies. Therefore management of relapsed and refractory NHL remains an unmet medical need.

This is a Phase 1, single-arm, open-label dose-escalation study of the safety and pharmacokinetics of LAM-002A administered orally in subjects with relapsed or refractory B-cell NHL. There will be a dose-escalation stage and an expansion stage for this study. The study drug will be administered on a twice daily oral dosing regimen with a cycle length of 28 days. Patients will continue on treatment as long as they are responding to therapy and not experiencing unacceptable side effects. All patients will be followed for overall survival every three months via telephone contact during the post-treatment follow-up period.

Key Eligibility

  • Men and women age 18 and older with histologically confirmed diagnosis of B-cell NHL limited to follicular lymphoma, DLBCL, mantle cell lymphoma, marginal zone lymphoma, or CLL/SLL.
  • Prior therapy must have included a rituximab-based chemo-immunotherapy regimen.
  • Detailed eligibility reviewed when you contact the study team.

Unmasking a Killer: How Immunotherapy Helps Your Body Find Cancer and Destroy It

One of the difficulties in treating all cancers is the inability of a person’s immune system to target cancer cells because of the cancer cells ability to avoid detection. Researchers throughout the Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian have been researching new ways to help the immune system find these cancer cells. This field of research is known as immunotherapy. Immunotherapy is a type of biological therapy that helps the immune system fight cancer through the use of substances in the living organism. You can find more information and an explanation as to how immunotherapy fights cancer in the below video:

http://www.nyp.org/cancerunmasked/

While specific immunotherapy derived treatments are still in the clinical trial phase for lymphoma this is an area of active research. In this video Lymphoma Program Director, Dr. John P. Leonard refers to the development of immune checkpoint inhibitors as an, “…important new frontier…” in the treatment of lymphoma. Currently clinicals for lymphoma related immunotherapy are ongoing. Available trials for immunotherapy at Weill Cornell can be found on the Joint Clinical Trials website.