Small Molecules for Follicular Lymphoma

A nice quickie for a Sunday morning.

Patient Power has another video follow-up from last month's 9th European Congress on Hematologic Malignancies in France. This one has the excellent title "Small Molecules Bring Hope for Follicular Lymphoma Patients." (You have to love anything that puts "hope" and "Follicular Lymphoma" in the same title.)

The three minute video is an interview with Dr. Gilles Salles of the University Hospital of Lyon in France. He mostly focuses on "small molecules" -- newer, often oral treatments that are targeted for FL cells. They are in their infancy, compared to something like Rituxan, so researchers are still playing with the most effective way to use them -- alone, in combination, as a maintenance strategy -- so we're going to see a lot about them as we move along.

I also like his last statement: we're so much farther along than we were 10 years ago, and we'll be so much farther still 10 years from now. Always nice to hear from a researcher.

Incidentally, if you haven't explored the Patient Power website, you should. Andrew Schorr, the co-founder and host, is a leukemia survivor himself, and an excellent patient advocate. 

(Also, just for kicks, I recommend you watch the video a second time. But this time, watch Dr. Salles lose focus halfway through it. He hears a bell, and then keeps looking to his left for the rest of the video. Imagine he saw an ice cream truck, and he's really hoping the interview will end soon so he can run and get a Toasted Almond bar, or the French equivalent, before the truck dives away. Fun with cancer!)