Update on Non Hodgkins Lymphoma

Patient Power has a video interview with  Dr. Joshua Brodey from Mount Sinai School of Medicine on advances in Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma. (It includes a very helpful written transcript, if you can't watch or understand the video.)

The interview is basically about the things that make Dr. Brodey excited about NHL. It's not an interview about Follicular Lymphoma specifically, or any other particular NHL sub-type. Butmost of what he talks about is related to FL in some way.

Some highlights for me:

• When he's asked about CAR-T, he says "This is so exciting when I describe this therapy to my patients I swear to God it sounds like science fiction.  It sounds like this is Star Trek medicine.  I mean, this is the step right before the little phaser beam that just makes people healthy.  It's almost that amazing." CAR-T is a big deal (read more here). It's approved now for more aggressive lymphomas (including transformed FL), but there are trials for more slow-growing, indolent FL types.
•  Right now, CAR-T is a third-line therapy, used after two other treatments have failed. Dr. Brodey is excited about finding ways to make it a second-line or even first-line therapy, so get it to more patients, sooner.
• He talks about antibody drug conjugates as an alternative to chemotherapy. While chemo attacks healthy cells as well as cancer cells, antibody drug conjugates are much more targeted. Like Rituxan, which targets the CD20 protein that is on the surface of the B cells that cause FL, other conjugates target different proteins like CD19 and CD79. Dr. Broadey says that one of them, when added to Rituxan + Bendamustine, makes the combo even more effective.
• Dr. Broadey also discusses immunotherapy, which he calls the greatest advance in oncology ever. Immunotherapy uses the body's own immune system to attack cancer cells. While some check-point inhibitors have shown a little success in NHL (including FL), they haven't been as successful as many had hoped. Researchers are looking at ways to use them more effectively, maybe by combining them in new ways.
• The interview ends with the advice that second opinions are always a good idea, especially going to a specialist who might know more about some of these newer treatments that are in clinical trials. Dr. Brodey makes it clear that doctors "have no ego" in this. They are fine with getting a second opinion. (That's nice to hear.)

 Lots of good stuff in the interview. As always, I really enjoy hearing an expert talk about new treatments, and being able to hear the excitement in his voice.

We have much to be excited about, too.