15-Year Trial Data Suggest Cure for Some Follicular Lymphoma

In a video interview, Dr. Jonathan W. Friedberg, director of the Wilmot Cancer Institute at the University of Rochester Medical Center, discussed 15-year follow-up data from the S0016 clinical trial in advanced-stage follicular lymphoma.

The study, which began in 2001, showed that more than one-third of patients treated with standard chemoimmunotherapy were cured, meaning they were alive more than 15 years after starting treatment with no evidence of disease progression.

Friedberg noted that chemotherapy combined with an antibody remains a recommended treatment for patients with advanced-stage follicular lymphoma who require therapy, and the findings suggest some patients may never need treatment again.

Transcript

For decades, advanced stage follicular lymphoma has been described as incurable. What does the 15 year follow up from the S0016 trial tell us about how that understanding may be changing.

This was really a remarkable finding for us. This clinical trial started in 2001, and we now have a median follow-up of more than 15 years. Through elaborate cure modeling analysis, we demonstrated that with standard treatment that we still use today, more than a third of patients are cured with that treatment. That means there is no evidence of disease progression, and the patients are alive more than 15 years after initiating treatment.

Our treatments are evolving and continuing to evolve, but for patients with advanced-stage follicular lymphoma that has a high tumor burden — in other words, disease that requires treatment — chemotherapy with an antibody remains the recommended treatment outside of a clinical trial, and our results certainly support that. What that also means is that more than a third of patients who receive that treatment will never need treatment again, which is a very different paradigm from what I grew up with during my training in this disease, when we used to say that patients would need treatment again and again.

I should add that the chemotherapy regimen studied in this trial is called R-CHOP. That regimen is still used today, but other chemotherapy regimens, such as bendamustine and rituximab, are also used. We do not know the degree to which those chemotherapy regimens will result in cure. However, we are optimistic that our findings will be generalizable.

Transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

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