Dr. Goy on the Role of Immunotherapy in Mantle Cell Lymphoma

Andre Goy, MD, MS, chairman and director, chief of Lymphoma, and director of Clinical and Translational Cancer Research at John Theurer Cancer Center, discusses immunotherapy agents currently being evaluated in the treatment of patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL).

Immune checkpoint inhibitors are currently being investigated in this patient population, explains Goy. He says that the ZUMA-2 trial will be particularly important in MCL. ZUMA-2 is a phase II multicenter study evaluating the efficacy of KTE-C19, an anti-CD19 CAR T-cell therapy in the treatment of patients with relapsed/refractory MCL.

Goy says it is significantly more difficult to treat patients with this disease, as the population is somewhat limited, with about 4000 or 5000 new cases diagnosed per year. Although most patients relapse, he explains, it is difficult to design very large studies.