Gilles Salles works at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center as the Lymphoma Service Chief. She recently sat down to discuss the necessity of new treatments for diffuse large B-Cell Lymphoma, or DLBCL.

As it stands, if patients don’t respond to the primary therapy, there aren’t that many other options for them to turn to. The primary therapy for about 50% of patients is chemotherapy and then a stem cell transplant. Those who are given these therapies typically have limited comorbidities and are of a younger age.

For the other 50% of patients, they aren’t eligible for chemotherapy or stem cell transplants. These patients are typically given immuno-chemotherapy.

For both of these types of primary therapies, response is very limited. Of those who do end up responding to the treatment, they typically only respond for 4-6 months. That duration of response is incredibly low.

So, patients are often forced to turn to second line therapies. Sadly, survival following second-line therapies is typically only one year.

Researchers are hard at work investigating new potential therapies for this condition. One new potential therapy is chimeric antigen receptor T cells. This therapy holds a lot of promise, however access is a problem. Additionally, not all patients are eligible for the treatment.

In addition to this newly emerging therapy, other agents are in the works. A continuing hurdle is short duration of responses for these therapies. Nonetheless, research is moving forward at a quick pace, aiming to overcome these barriers to care.

You can read more about the current research hurdles in diffuse large B-Cell Lymphoma here.