Dr. Martin on Treatment Considerations for MCL

Peter Martin, MD, chief of the Lymphoma Program at the Meyer Cancer Center and an associate professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, discusses treatment considerations for patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL).

Historically, patients with MCL have been divided into 2 groups based on age, one being patients aged 65 years and older, according to Martin. However, both the disease and patients have deeper complexities than just age when it comes to considering factors for treatment, Martin notes.

Some lymphoma subtypes are quite aggressive, specifically blastoid MCL. For other more hyperproliferative lymphomas, and those with TP53 mutations, existing therapies have not elicited promising results, Martin explains. It can be disheartening as an oncologist to administer an intensive therapy only for a patient's disease to recur 1 or 2 years following treatment, according to Martin.

It is probable that this patient population will move to receiving treatment with CAR T-cell therapy earlier on in their journey. This population needs to be addressed in a clinical trial setting, Martin concludes.