Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center and its associated Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center, will be presenting close to 30 abstracts on topics such as lymphoma, pediatric cancer and melanoma at the upcoming 51st Annual Meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago, May 29 to June 2, 2015.
Lymphoma is a type of cancer that affects the immune system, namely immune cells called lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell) in lymph nodes. There are two main types of lymphoma: non-Hodgkin’s (about 90% of the cases) and Hodgkin’s (10%). Patients with lymphoma may experience swelling of the lymph nodes, fever, night sweats, itching, loss of appetite, sudden weight loss and fatigue. It is estimated that in 2015, almost 72,000 individuals will be diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in the United States.
Concerning NYU Langone research on lymphoma, Dr. Catherine S. Diefenbach will be presenting a poster entitled “A Phase I Study with an Expansion Cohort of the Combination of Ipilimumab and Brentuximab Vedotin in Patients with Relapsed/Refractory Hodgkin Lymphoma: A Trial of the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group (E4412)”. The goal of this work was to target both the tumor cells and the tumor microenvironment in patients with relapsed Hodgkin’s lymphoma through a combination therapy of ipilimumab (an anti-cancer antibody that activates the immune system by targeting the immunosuppressor CTLA-4) and brentuximab vedotin (an antibody-drug conjugate against CD30 protein, which is expressed in Hodgkin lymphoma).
Dr. Diefenbach has been involved in other research projects that will also be presented at ASCO 2015. One of them, entitled “Two Doses of Polatuzumab Vedotin (PoV, anti-CD79b antibody-drug conjugate) in Patients with Relapsed/Refractory (RR) Follicular Lymphoma (FL): Durable Responses at Lower Dose Level” is focused on follicular lymphoma, the most common slow-growing form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and treatment through PoV, which targets the molecule CD79b that is often expressed in lymphomas. The team will show that PoV is an effective therapy and that its safety can be improved through a lower dose and/or shorter treatment period.
Another presentation entitled “Interim Analysis of a Phase I Study of INCB040093, a PI3Kδ Inhibitor, Alone or in Combination with INCB039110, a Selective JAK1 Inhibitor, in Patients with Relapsed or Refractory (r/r) B-cell Malignancies” will show that two therapies (INCB0400093 and INCB039110), in combination or alone, have promising efficacy and are well tolerated by patients with Hodgkin’s lymphoma or other relapsed or refractory B cell lymphomas.
“Our clinical and research community is proud that so many of our colleagues will be presenting and involved in ASCO 2015,” said the Director of the Perlmutter Cancer Center at NYU Langone, Dr. Benjamin G. Neel in a news release. “What is most impressive is that our research covers a diverse array of topics, all of them critical areas in which we hope to lead further research into improving diagnosis, treatment and outcomes.”
