Medical Oncology
Physician insights on cancer treatment protocols, immunotherapy, targeted therapies, and clinical trial updates.
Recent Discussions
What is your preferred salvage therapy for patients with follicular lymphoma who relapsed within 24 months of completing front-line chemoimmunotherapy (POD24) and will proceed to high-dose therapy with Auto-SCT?
There is no standard therapy for patients progressing within 24 months of 1L chemoimmunotherapy. If you have a well-designed clinical trial, I would do this 1st. Outside of a clinical trial, I would 1st try to biopsy a hot spot to r/o large B-cell transformation. If so, if the patient is a candidate...
What is your preferred second line regimen for follicular lymphoma that has relapsed four years out since receiving BR?
Many possible answers here, but I have been using zanubrutinib + obino in this setting as in the ROSEWOOD study. Zinzani et al., PMID 37506346 While not compared directly to rituximab + rev, it certainly looks better. Don’t want to repeat benda and impair T cell function for future CAR-T or bispecif...
What are the factors that convince you to not immediately treat mantle cell lymphoma and to follow a course of "active surveillance"?
A subset of patients with MCL have a significantly longer survival (often more than 7-10 years) and a more indolent disease course. Two separate groups have reported patients who did not receive up-front chemotherapy at the time of diagnosis but were instead actively monitored, the watch-a...
What is your preferred BTK inhibitor for patients with relapsed/refractory mantle cell lymphoma?
The majority of patients with relapsed/refractory MCL will respond to single agent BTKi therapy and this is my preferred treatment in patients at first relapse when a clinical trial is not available, and they have not been exposed to a BTKi (for example, on a frontline clinical trial). I often used ...
When would you use acalabrutinib in combination with obinutuzumab vs acalabrutinib alone in upfront CLL treatment?
I generally prefer acalabrutinib for treating CLL.When this is first-line therapy and there is a need to give “fixed-duration" treatment, I use obinutuzumab + acalabrutinib. If this is a single agent (monotherapy), I use Acalabrutinib alone.For 2nd or 3rd line, if the patient previously has had chem...
What are the factors that convince you to not immediately treat mantle cell lymphoma and to follow a course of "active surveillance"?
A subset of patients with MCL have a significantly longer survival (often more than 7-10 years) and a more indolent disease course. Two separate groups have reported patients who did not receive up-front chemotherapy at the time of diagnosis but were instead actively monitored, the watch-a...
What is your preferred BTK inhibitor for patients with relapsed/refractory mantle cell lymphoma?
The majority of patients with relapsed/refractory MCL will respond to single agent BTKi therapy and this is my preferred treatment in patients at first relapse when a clinical trial is not available, and they have not been exposed to a BTKi (for example, on a frontline clinical trial). I often used ...
When would you use acalabrutinib in combination with obinutuzumab vs acalabrutinib alone in upfront CLL treatment?
I generally prefer acalabrutinib for treating CLL.When this is first-line therapy and there is a need to give “fixed-duration" treatment, I use obinutuzumab + acalabrutinib. If this is a single agent (monotherapy), I use Acalabrutinib alone.For 2nd or 3rd line, if the patient previously has had chem...
How would you treat a fit patient with a history of relapsed CLL who now presents with Richter transformation s/p autologous anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cells?
This is very challenging and essentially in a data-free zone. There are some data on off-label use of axi-cel for Richter, and liso-cel technically has a label for Richter. Results appear encouraging, but treatment and outcomes after CART failure are unknown. I would consider everything possible – c...
How would you treat a fit patient with a history of relapsed CLL who now presents with Richter transformation s/p autologous anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cells?
This is very challenging and essentially in a data-free zone. There are some data on off-label use of axi-cel for Richter, and liso-cel technically has a label for Richter. Results appear encouraging, but treatment and outcomes after CART failure are unknown. I would consider everything possible – c...