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.

Ibrutinib Demonstrates Continued Efficacy for CLL Patients at 3 Year Follow-up

Previous studies have demonstrated the efficacy ibrutinib (Imbruvica), an oral inhibitor of Bruton’s tyrosine kinase, has as treatment for patients with CLL. This has led to its approval by the FDA for previously treated patients with CLL and patients with CLL who have deletion 17p regardless of prior therapy. In a paper published online in Blood, a group of investigators, including Richard R. Furman, published long term follow up results from the original phase II studies of ibrutinib in patients with CLL. The paper presents results from a median three-year follow-up of 132 treatment-naive and relapsed/refractory symptomatic patients with CLL or SLL, receiving single agent ibrutinib. Longer treatment with ibrutinib was associated with improvement in response quality, durable remissions, and with diminishing toxicity and adverse side effects. For the treatment naïve group of patients, the 30 month progression free survival was 96%. For the relapsed refractory patients, the 30 month PFS was 69%, with disease progression being seen primarily in the patients with relapsed del(17)(p13.1) and/or del(11)(q22.3) disease. Findings from this study provide further evidence that ibrutinib is an effective and well tolerated long-term treatment for patients with CLL.

A full listing of available CLL trials at WCMC can be found here. Please look to this space for further developments about ibrutinib and CLL trials.

Dr. John Leonard to Participate in LLS Sponsored Event about Understanding Clinical Trials

Later this week Lymphoma Program Director and Associate Dean for Clinical Research at Weill Cornell Medical College, Dr. John Leonard will participate in a LLS hosted patient education program:

Clinical Trials or Standard Treatment? Understanding Options for Blood Cancers

Date: March 18, 2015

Time: 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. ET
Location: Telephone/Web
Register
To register by phone, call (855) 676-7723.

Topics Covered

  • The role of clinical trials in blood cancer treatment
  • How clinical trials are designed
  • How to determine the best treatment option for you
  • Talking to your healthcare team about treatment options

Classical Hodgkin Lymphoma Genome Sequenced by Research Team

In a recent study first published online, then as a plenary paper in the February 12 issue of Blood an inter-institutional team of researchers sequenced the genome of classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL). This sequencing allowed researchers to study the changes in proteins in individual patients, which could potentially lead to the development of new therapies targeting the cells affected by cHL. Their findings are especially notable as,

“Now we have a better idea of what mutations there are, and going forward therapies can be adapted to specific patient populations according to their genomic composition,” said senior author Dr. Ethel Cesarman, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College.

Although scientists have sequenced the genomes of many other diseases, the cHL genome has remained elusive due to the difficulty of isolating Reed-Sternberg cells, which usually comprise less than 1 percent of a total cHL tumor. The team employed a technique that separates larger cells and looks at the proteins on their surface, called fluorescence-activated cell sorting, to successfully isolate the Reed-Sternberg cells and sequence the cancer genome, said senior author Dr. Mikhail Roshal, an assistant member in the Department of Pathology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

These findings could potentially lead to more personalized treatment options for patients with cHL. They exemplify the bench to bedside approach taken by the Lymphoma Program and Meyer Cancer Center. Please look to this space for further updates about lymphoma news and clinical trials.