Category: Patient Education

Dr. Sarah Rutherford Examines Necessity of Bone Marrow Biopsy in Follicular Lymphoma Clinical Trials

This is an excerpt of a recent Medscape article in which Dr. Sarah Rutherford comments on her research published in the British Journal of Haematology. Read the full story here.

Clinical trials in patients with follicular lymphoma (FL) mandate that patients undergo bone marrow biopsies (BMBs) at baseline and at subsequent points following treatment in order to monitor response. But how necessary are they?

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Dr. Sarah Rutherford

The biopsies are unnecessary in most patients, argue researchers reporting results from a  retrospective analysis of 99 patients with FL enrolled across 32 clinical trials at Weill Cornell Medical College. The study found that the mandatory BMBs resulted in response assessment change in at most 1% of patients and so concluded that they were not needed.

“In our patient-centered approach to care, we find that these biopsies are painful and anxiety-provoking. The procedures take time, add to healthcare costs, and are a hindrance for patients to participate in clinical trials,” corresponding author, Sarah Rutherford, MD, medical oncologist at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian, New York City, told Medscape Medical News.

“In routine clinical practice, we do not often do bone marrow biopsies in follicular lymphoma patients. Removal of this barrier can contribute significantly to increasing patient interest in clinical trials, which can provide them access to novel and promising therapies,” she added.

Expert Pathologic Review Demonstrates Notable Significance in Lymphoma Care

A new study published by the Journal of Clinical Oncology proposes that pathologic review has direct implications on lymphoma diagnosis and management.

Over a four-year span, the Lymphopath Network, a national hematopathology expert network in France that reviews lymphoma cases prior to therapeutic decision, reviewed over 30,000 samples from patients with newly diagnosed or suspected lymphoma. Researchers found that a change in diagnosis from original referral to expert review occurred in almost 20 percent of patients, and the change was significant enough to potentially impact care in over 17 percent of patients.

Diagnostic discrepancies were greater in patient samples sent with a provisional diagnosis than in those sent with a formal diagnosis, meaning that when referring pathologists were confident about the diagnosis, they were typically correct. Although most discrepancies were due to misclassifications of lymphoma subtypes, some patients were referred with benign conditions that were deemed lymphomas after pathologic review.

The study implies that frequently, in order for patients to receive optimal care, their diagnoses are best determined in collaboration with expert pathologists – especially in the current age of personalized medicine.

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Dr. Peter Martin

“As doctors who take care of people with cancer, so much of what we do is dependent on having a precise diagnosis,” said Peter Martin, Chief of the Lymphoma Program at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian. “My bias is to meet people early on so that I can help direct the diagnostic evaluation, minimize unnecessary testing, and work with our experts in radiology, surgery, and pathology to arrive at the correct diagnosis as rapidly as possible. Importantly, the findings from the Lymphopath Network study highlight that even when a diagnosis has already been made, a second opinion regarding pathology can be important, particularly when there is any diagnostic uncertainty.”

As part of our mission to deliver precise, individualized care to as many patients as possible, expert hematologists and oncologists at the Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian Lymphoma Program collaborate with our team of world-class hematopathologists to provide collective assessment of all individual cases, working our hardest to secure an accurate diagnosis before proceeding with the appropriate therapy.

FDA Approves Subcutaneous Administration of Rituximab for Three Lymphoma Types

On June 22, 2017, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved subcutaneous injection of rituximab plus hyaluronidase human for people with follicular lymphoma (FL), diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Subcutaneous administration refers to the method of delivering a drug under the skin rather than directly into a vein as performed during intravenous (IV) administration.

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Administration of rituximab under the skin tends to take less than 10 minutes, whereas the traditional IV method can last several hours. The technique also allows for fixed dosing, which can reduce preparation time and excess drug waste, and may be more cost effective than IV infusion.

The approved treatment is to be employed only after patients have received at least one cycle of intravenous rituximab.

Approval comes based on the results of a series of clinical trials demonstrating comparable safety and efficacy outcomes across subcutaneous and intravenous administration.