Lymphoma

The chimeric monoclonal anti-CD20 antibody rituximab (Rituxan) has been shown to have clinical activity in patients with

MIAMI BEACH-Chronic inflammation due to Helicobacter pylori infection is the “underlying disease” that causes some gastric lymphomas, and curing the infection produces durable remissions of the neoplasms, Andreas Neubauer, MD, said at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) annual meeting.

LYON, France-The addition of interferon-alfa-2b (IFN, Intron A) to the usual CHVP regimen (cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, teniposide, prednisone) extends survival in elderly patients with high-risk follicular lymphoma, Dr. Bertrand Coiffier said at the ASH meeting.

MIAMI BEACH-Hodgkin’s disease (HD) was the focus of an education session and major new research reports at the American Society of Hematology annual meeting. Among the conclusions: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy before radiotherapy provides better outcomes in early-stage HD; moderate dose escalation offers some advantages in advanced disease; and chemotherapy is equal to radiotherapy as consolidation treatment in advanced disease.

TUCSON-Cyclosporine (Sandimmune) significantly reduces resistance to daunorubicin (Cerubidine), prolongs the duration of remission, and improves overall survival of patients with high-risk acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), Alan F. List, MD, of the University of Arizona, said at the ASH meeting. Dr. List’s observations were based on a randomized trial conducted with the Southwest Oncology Group.

SEATTLE-Preliminary phase II data show that CMA-676, an engineered human anti-CD33 antibody linked to calicheamicin, a potent cytotoxic agent, produced an objective response in 10 of 23 patients (43%) with acute myelogenous leukemia in first relapse after initial chemotherapy. Six responders went on to allogeneic bone marrow transplant.

CHICAGO-A cost analysis of the use of G-CSF (Neupogen) in elderly patients undergoing intensive chemotherapy for acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) showed the agent to be almost cost neutral, Tammy J. Stinson, MS, said at a poster session of the American Society of Hematology annual meeting.

DUISBERG, Germany-High-dose chemotherapy (with colony stimulating factor support) significantly increased complete remission rates in advanced Hodgkin’s disease in a German randomized trial reported by Heinrich Gerhartz, MD, at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology.

GOTEBORG, Sweden-A postconsolidation regimen of low-dose interleukin-2 (IL-2) and the investigational agent histamine dihydrochloride (Maxamine) appears to increase leukemia-free survival in acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) patients in remission, Bo I. Nilsson, MD, PhD, reported at an ASH poster session.

Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) is a myeloproliferative disorder that follows a characteristic clinical course in which a chronic phase of variable duration precedes an accelerated, and ultimately blastic, phase,

Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) is an intriguing disease for reasons that point to important biological differences between this and other types of leukemia:

Manifestations of mantle cell lymphoma were recognized in the 1970s as distinct from those associated with the more readily classifiable lymphomas. It was not until the 1990s, however, that observation of a combination of immunologic, cytogenetic, and molecular genetic abnormalities characteristic of this new malignancy confirmed its existence. The clinical and pathologic entity was named mantle cell lymphoma and in 1994 was incorporated into the Revised European American Lymphoma Classification. Mantle cell lymphoma is a CD5 positive, B-cell lymphoma that usually displays the t(11;14). The lymphoma has a striking male predominance and is widely disseminated at diagnosis in 80% of patients. Mantle cell lymphoma responds poorly to available therapies, and the median survival is approximately 3 years.[ONCOLOGY 12(Suppl 8):49-55, 1998]

TORONTO--Residual masses are a frequent finding after treatment of Hodgkin’s disease. However, CT scans and MRI cannot reliably distinguish between scar tissue and viable tumor in these patients. A German study suggests that whole-body 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) may be useful in determining the viability of these masses.

TORONTO--In a study of newly diagnosed patients with Hodgkin’s disease, nuclear medicine imaging detected advanced disease in a significant portion of patients originally classified as having only stage I or II disease. These patients were imaged using indium-111 octreotide (OctreoScan), also known as somatostatin-receptor scintigraphy.

Individualizing the dosage of cancer chemotherapy can increase survival rates for children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) without causing excessive toxicity, according to a recent study published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The management of patients with the less aggressive subtypes of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma remains a clinical challenge. As pointed out by Webster and Cella, this challenge relates, at least in part, to the comparatively long median survival that can be achieved in such patients with a wide variety of treatment approaches. However, it is very important to realize that not all patients with the indolent varieties of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma are the same.

Cancer treatment often has debilitating effects on the patients who receive it. Chemotherapy regimens can produce toxicities, such as gastrointestinal disturbances, hematologic deficiencies, fatigue, and neurotoxicity. Patients typically undergo these chemotherapy regimens to increase their disease-free survival time. Given that these therapies can negatively affect a patient’s quality of life (QOL), treatments need to provide clear curative potential and/or survival benefits to offset detrimental effects on QOL.

SAN DIEGO-Up to 80% of newly diagnosed elderly acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) patients overexpress P-glycoprotein (P-gp), leading to multidrug resistance and a poor prognosis, said Dr. P. Sonneveld, University Hospital, Rotterdam, in a presentation at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) annual meeting.

Researchers found that men who use cocaine are twice as likely as abstainers to develop intermediate- or high-grade non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL). For those who use cocaine more frequently, ie, on at least nine occasions, the risk is more than triple what nonusers face, says Rebecca Nelson, a doctoral student in the preventive medicine department at the University of Southern California (USC) School of Medicine, in an article published recently in the British Journal of Cancer.

ASH-Patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) who are eligible for transplant but lack a matched sibling donor should begin their search for an unrelated donor as soon as possible after diagnosis, A. James Morton, MD, said at the plenary session of the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) in San Diego.

Drs. Enright and McGlave succinctly review the biology of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) and highlight the therapeutic role of allogeneic stem-cell transplantation. Two points, however, warrant further discussion. The first is that a regimen containing interferon-alfa (Intron A, Roferon-A) is optimal front-line therapy for the great majority of CML patients.[1] The second is that use of an interferon-alfa-based regimen prior to allogeneic stem-cell transplantation does not adversely affect post-transplant mortality, morbidity, or anti-CML efficacy.

NEW ORLEANS--A cytogenetic biomarker may be able to predict second cancers in patients with Hodgkin's disease, Sara Strom, PhD, of M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, reported at the American Society of Preventive Oncology (ASPO) annual meeting.

ASCO--Treatment with an investigational immunoconjugate, CMA-676, safely induced remissions in some patients with refractory or relapsed acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), Eric L. Sievers, MD, said in his poster presentation of the preliminary results at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting.

VIENNA--The first Hodgkin's disease study updates to come out of the Milan Cancer Institute since 1989 have now confirmed that the therapeutic advantages of regimens containing ABVD (Adriamycin, bleomycin, vinblastine, dacarbazine) are sustained for nearly two decades.

ORLANDO--Combination therapy utilizing interferon alfa-2b (Intron A) and cytarabine is associated with improved cytogenetic response and survival over interferon alone in patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), a French study, presented at the 38th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), has shown.