Dr. Straus on Ongoing Clinical Trials in Hodgkin Lymphoma

David J. Straus, MD, an internist and hematologic oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses ongoing clinical trials in the field of Hodgkin lymphoma.

Straus explains that researchers want to achieve a PET complete response with the use of ESHAP or ICE prior to transplant because they have led to improved outcomes if the PET is negative prior to transplant. If this can be achieved with chemotherapy regimens, that would be an interesting approach, he adds. However, these are early data and it has to be confirmed in other trials, as well as further follow-up data.

Nivolumab (Opdivo) and pembrolizumab (Keytruda) are very exciting because, for the first time ever, there is a treatment that works that is not chemotherapy. Although brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) is a chemotherapy with a better delivery system, it is still chemotherapy, he explains.

Now, there are other drugs with high response rates. The question is going to be how to introduce these drugs as early as possible into patients as being the 10% to 15% of whom who are chemotherapy resistant.