Tag: Jia Ruan MD

Dr. Jia Ruan Speaks about Novel Therapeutic Combinations for Mantle Cell Lymphoma

In a segment taken from the 2014 meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), Dr. Jia Ruan answered questions about the difficulties faced in treating patients with mantle cell lymphoma and the novel therapeutic combinations that could help improve treatment.

The video can be seen here.

Lenalidomide and Rituximab Combination Displays Promise for the Treatment of Patients with Mantle Cell Lymphoma

Investigators from around the world are taking notice of our results in treating patients with mantle cell lymphoma. (MCL) In the below video, Dr. Laurie Sehn from the University of British Columbia shares her thoughts on Dr. Jia Ruan’s clinical trial of lenalidomide plus rituximab for previously untreated mantle cell lymphoma.

 

 

In the following video Dr. Ruan further discusses results of her trial with lenalidomide and rituximab combination for patients with MCL.

Circulating Memory T-cell Isolated from Hodgkin Lymphoma Patients Display Evidence of Exhaustion and Chronic Activation

Picture2By Jia Ruan, MD, PhD

Although Hodgkin Reed-Sternberg (HRS) cells comprise only a small number of tumor cells, their number is outweighed by their relative importance as the orchestrators of an inflammatory microenvironment that allows for the growth of Hodgkin Lymphoma (HL). The peritumoral CD4 and CD8 cells in patients with HL, display high expression of the receptor programmed death-1 (PD-1). PD-1 is involved in the functional impairment and “exhaustion” of T-cells. Recent data confirms that the effects of HL-mediated immune suppression may stretch beyond the tumor microenvironment, with reports of high levels of inflammatory cytokines and chemokines in patients with both newly diagnosed and relapsed HL.

In results presented from an abstract presented during the 2014 American Society of Hematology conference (ASH), we found that HL patients have evidence of chronic activation/exhaustion in their central memory and effector T-cells. Informed consent was requested for correlative blood testing was obtained from patients with both newly diagnosed and relapsed HL. For patients with progressive disease persistence of this phenotype is worthy of further investigation as to whether immune dysfunction results from or is caused by resistance to therapy. An answer to this question may provide the rationale for an immune targeted therapy in patients with relapsed or resistance HL.