It's been a busy week. Work has picked up again. That explains why I haven't written in almost a week. I've barely had time to think, let along write.
(But, as I've said for 12 years or so, I'm lucky to be healthy enough to work, and to have a job to work at. So this isn't a complaint.)
In the spirit of being busy, and of the kind of "wrap up the summer" feeling that I've been getting this week, as kids go back to school (staying safe, I very much hope), I'm going to link to a nice interview published on OncLive a couple of days ago.
It's called "Emerging Approaches Seek to Expand the Relapsed/Refractory Follicular Lymphoma Treatment Arsenal," and the person interviewed is Dr. Lori Leslie of the John Theurer Cancer Center in New Jersey.
Dr. Leslie discusses some of the recent research on Relapsed/Refractory FL -- treatments that are used after a treatment has stopped working, or that didn't wok at all. It's a subject that I care about a lot, of course; like many of you, my next treatment will be one that has been approved for R/R FL patients, or is in a trial that group.
She mentions Bendamustine and CHOP, two traditional chemotherapies. They are usually combined with Rituxan, though they are also being combined with Obinutuzumab more and more these days (it's similar to Rituxan, but with some changes that should make it more effective and less likely to produce allergic reactions, for some patients).
Dr. Leslie also discusses Tazemetostat, recently approved for patients with EZH2 mutation, or for whom there are no others options available.
She is also hopeful that CAR-T will become available for R/R FL patients (that's still in a phase 2 trial; I'm guessing we'll see results in a few months at the ASH conference). She hopes it will someday be effetcive and safe enough to become the "standard of care" -- the default option.
The interview touches on a few other topics -- watching and waiting, for example, and R-Squared.
It's a good summary of what's happening in the lymphoma world for R/R patients right now. An end-of-summer-summary. (Sorry if that didn't translate well.)
I hope all of you are staying safe and healthy, especially as kids start going back to school.
More soon, when things calm down a little bit.
No comments:
Post a Comment