Dr. Ghosh on Frontline Immunotherapy in Hodgkin Lymphoma

Nilanjan Ghosh, MD, PhD, physician, Levine Cancer Institute, discusses frontline immunotherapy in Hodgkin lymphoma.

Currently, there are 2 checkpoint inhibitors approved for the treatment of patients with Hodgkin lymphoma. In May 2016, the FDA granted an accelerated approval to nivolumab (Opdivo) for the treatment of patients with classical Hodgkin lymphoma that has relapsed or progressed after autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) and brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris). In March 2017, the FDA granted an accelerated approval to pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for the treatment of adult and pediatric patients with classical Hodgkin lymphoma who are refractory or have relapsed after 3 or more lines of therapy.

Ghosh says that there may be a role for immunotherapy in the frontline setting. There are trials of immunotherapy currently ongoing, but there is not yet a head-to-head comparison. Trials are being planned to move PD-1 inhibitors to the frontline setting, says Ghosh, but there are no real-world data yet.