Category: Patient Advocacy

Center for Lymphoma Announces the Formation of Adolescent and Young Adult Lymphoma Program

Lisa Roth, MD
Lisa Roth, MD

Recently the Center for Lymphoma announced the formation of the Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Lymphoma Program at Weill Cornell Medical College. The program is a collaborative effort between the Departments of Medicine and Pediatrics, and will be lead by Dr. Lisa Roth, a pediatric oncologist and new member of the Lymphoma Center.

Lymphoma is the most common malignancy in adolescents and young adults age 18-30y. While there has been remarkable progress in the treatment of children and older adults, improvements among adolescents and young adults have lagged behind. The reasons for this discrepancy are multifactorial, but include low enrollment in clinical trials, poor access to healthcare services, and a deficit in clinical and translational research in this area. The AYA Lymphoma Program seeks to advance the treatment of lymphoma in the AYA age group through the following missions:

1) Optimize medical care for AYA patients with lymphoma.

2) Provide psycho-social support tailored to AYA patients.

3) Lead clinical and translational studies aimed at improving outcomes in this age group.

Weill Cornell Medical College is in a unique position to treat AYA patients with lymphoma given the strengths of the Center for Lymphoma and the Division of Pediatric Oncology. Dr. Roth has been a Weill Cornell faculty member since joining the Department of Pediatrics in 2012. She is the Charles, Lillian, and Betty Neuwirth Clinical Scholar in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology and has been awarded fellowships from the Lymphoma Research Foundation and the Empire Clinical Research Investigator Program. Dr. Roth will work closely with a team of doctors, physician assistants, social workers, and researchers all with the common goal of improving outcomes for adolescents and young adults with lymphoma.

FDA Approves Ibrutinib for Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

Last week the FDA announced the approval of ibrutinib for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. According to their press release:

“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today expanded the approved use of Imbruvica (ibrutinib) for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients who have received at least one previous therapy.”

“CLL is a rare blood and bone marrow disease that usually gets worse slowly over time, causing a gradual increase in white blood cells called B lymphocytes, or B cells. The National Cancer Institute estimates that 15,680 Americans were diagnosed and 4,580 died from the disease in 2013.”

“Imbruvica works by blocking the enzyme that allows cancer cells to grow and divide. In November 2013, the FDA granted Imbruvica accelerated approval to treat patients with mantle cell lymphoma, a rare and aggressive type of blood cancer, if those patients received at least one prior therapy.”

“Today’s approval provides an important new treatment option for CLL patients whose cancer has progressed despite having undergone previous therapy,” said Richard Pazdur, M.D., director of the Office of Hematology and Oncology Products in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “The FDA completed its review of Imbruvica’s new indication under the agency’s accelerated approval process, which played a vital role in rapidly making this new therapy available to those who need it most.”

 The full press release can be read on their website. 

The full listing of CLL trials at WCMC is available on the clinical trials website. Look to this space for further news concerning  ibrutinib trials for CLL patients at WCMC.

ASCO 2013: Impact of Interval Between Diagnoses and Initiation of Curative Chemotherapy on Survival of Patients with Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma

peter martin photoBy Peter Martin, MD

A common question arising among patients with newly diagnosed DLBCL is how soon to begin treatment. While it is generally considered more appropriate to start chemotherapy sooner rather than later after diagnosis, the exact impact of this time interval on treatment outcomes is unknown. At the recent Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago, Dr. Kevin A. Hay from the University of British Columbia presented the results of a retrospective study evaluating the association of patient outcomes with time to initiation of treatment.

Dr. Hay retrospectively divided 793 patients with DLBCL and at least one cycle of R-CHOP into four groups based on the amount of time between initial diagnosis and beginning of therapy. A total of 25% of respondents received R-CHOP within 2 weeks of diagnosis, 31% in 2-4 weeks, 37% in 5-8 weeks, and 7% at longer than 8 weeks. Interestingly, there was no statistically significant difference in survival between the groups. The authors concluded that the timing of chemotherapy initiation appeared to be related to clinical factors (i.e., sicker patients were treated sooner) rather than medical system or socioeconomic barriers. While detrimental outcomes were lacking in those patients who began treatment after 8 weeks, they recommended beginning chemotherapy as soon as possible after an initial diagnosis of DLBCL.