During the American Society of Hematology’s inaugural meeting on mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), Lymphoma Program Director, Dr. John Leonard discussed his treatment approach to patients with MCL. As TargetedOncology notes Dr. Leonard’s approach includes two key principles:
The first is to observe patients with asymptomatic MCL for as long as possible. In discussing the watch-and-wait approach, Leonard referred colleagues to data from the 2009 study that he co-authored in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, “Outcome of Deferred Initial Therapy in Mantle-Cell Lymphoma.”1 The overall survival (OS) of patients in the observation group exceeded that of patients in the early treatment group.
The second key principle that he suggested was to begin with less intensive initial treatments when needed due to their lower toxicity levels. “It’s true that less intensive treatments might have more chronic toxicity, but intensive treatments are unquestionably more toxic in the short term and can have longer-term toxicities as well,” he said.
You can read the rest of the article for a more in-depth summary of Dr. Leonard’s approach to treating patients with MCL.
New Developments in Lymphoma 