Latest / EHA Unplugged / How Experts Treat Peripheral T- and NK-cell Lymphomas
Transcript
- 0:00These guidelines today have much more clinical trial based
- 0:04evidence than guidelines from 10 years ago, even if it is a rare
- 0:09disease. And we have introduced in the
- 0:12first line a more refined application of standard tools
- 0:17that existed so far. Welcome to EHA Unplugged, the
- 0:25official podcast channel from the European Hematology
- 0:27Association EHA. I'm your host, Isabella Olivera.
- 0:31Today we're talking about the recent ESMO EHA guidelines for
- 0:36peripheral T and natural killer cell lymphomas.
- 0:39This is a collaboration between ESMO and EHA.
- 0:42To walk us through these wide lines, we have today 2
- 0:44professors, Francesco Lamore from ESMO and Massimo Federico
- 0:48from EHA. Professor Damore is a clinical
- 0:51professor and chair of the Department of Hematology at Arus
- 0:55University in Denmark. And Professor Massimo Federico
- 0:58is a senior professor of medical oncology at the University of
- 1:01Modena and Radio Media in Italy. They were both deeply involved
- 1:04in shaping these guidelines, and they're here to help us
- 1:07understand what's new in these guidelines, why these changes
- 1:10matter, and how they can make a difference for patients.
- 1:13Thank you for being with us today.
- 1:16Thank you for your invitation. Thank you for invitation.
- 1:20We're going to start by clarifying which informants are
- 1:24in this guideline that uses the term PTCL to cover malignancies
- 1:28that are derived from either T or NK cells.
- 1:31There are many two types what is covered in this guideline.
- 1:35These guidelines cover the different peripheral T cell
- 1:39lymphomas that are classified as a nodal, extra nodal, and
- 1:44leukemic disseminated. We did not cover the topics of
- 1:50cutaneous peripheral T cell lymphoma.
- 1:53We did not cover the pretymic either, that is the T cell
- 1:58derived acute lymphoblastic leukemias and lymphoblastic
- 2:01lymphomas. So it is the mature entities,
- 2:05postymic with the exclusion, as Professor Federico just said, of
- 2:10the cutaneous one among the mature entities.
- 2:14And why was there a need for this new guidelines?
- 2:18The last guidelines were that the community received in this
- 2:22context were produced in 2015. A decade ago landscape of
- 2:28peripheral T cell lymphomas, T&K cell lymphomas was significantly
- 2:35more simple. But there has been an increase,
- 2:38a dramatic increase in complexity due to steep growth
- 2:46of knowledge in the in these entities, knowledge about their
- 2:50biology, which also has led to the definition of new entities.
- 2:54As we take for example, the breast implant associated
- 2:58anaplastic glass cell informer was something absolutely absent
- 3:02in the latest guidelines. In the latest guidelines we were
- 3:06talking about intestinal T cell informers that were enteropathy
- 3:11associated type 2 which we called it enteropathy associated
- 3:15but there was no enteropathy around.
- 3:18Today this has changed the name and has also completely
- 3:22different biology and background from the well known and celiac
- 3:28disease associated T cell informers.
- 3:30These are two examples of brand new things, and there are many
- 3:33more to to mention that make the complexity level of these
- 3:37guidelines much more difficult to see and to understand if you
- 3:42if you don't have specific guidelines looking at all the
- 3:45entities. In addition to the clarification
- 3:48of Professor Damore, I would like to also underline that we
- 3:53did our best to offer practical deadlines for more than a dozen
- 4:00of different subtypes just to help physicians to find
- 4:04correctly the deadlines for the specific, for the single
- 4:09patients. So it was really a huge effort
- 4:12to not to offer detailed information on how to treat
- 4:16nodal, different types of nodal extranodal, different types of
- 4:20extranodal and so on. And this was one of the most
- 4:23relevant reasons for the need of an update.
- 4:28The first program I imagine is to diagnose this lymphomas
- 4:32because there are so many subtypes and they are rare.
- 4:35How to diagnose today? What are the recommendations in
- 4:38this guideline? To begin with, as the answer of
- 4:41this question to this question, we have one of the most
- 4:43recognized T cell lymphoma pathologist as a member of our
- 4:47author group, Professor de la Belle that has produced quite
- 4:54detailed overviews and algorithms for the diagnosis
- 4:58which is based on a three level tire diagnostic approach.
- 5:03The first level is the morphology, the second level is
- 5:06the immunohistochemistry as we are used.
- 5:09But then there is 1/3 tire which is the molecular profiling at
- 5:13genomic level which today has entered the diagnostic area no
- 5:19longer as a research topic but more and more interacting with
- 5:25the daily diagnostic decisions. So the genomic profile for
- 5:29example in TFH particular helper T cell derived lymphomas will
- 5:35allow you to make decisions in the in the first line and
- 5:39relapse, relapse setting for example, for the use of hyper
- 5:45methylating agents that are no no longer only for research, but
- 5:49also introduced in the daily practice today.
- 5:52So these are new things that they got the guidelines from
- 5:542015 did not have at all. And so I would also add that we
- 6:01did our best that we tried also to clarify the complexity,
- 6:06complexity of the initial diagnosis for the needs for
- 6:10confirmation by an expert pathologist and also the need to
- 6:16have a multidisciplinary approach in planning right to
- 6:21treatment according to the subtypes and the extension of
- 6:24the disease. But also we would like to help
- 6:27physicians to treat their patients in the area of
- 6:31residency of the patients. So it's a rare disease.
- 6:35Now it is impossible to imagine that we can cover with the
- 6:39referral center everywhere. So we we have to also to try to
- 6:45combine the the needs for a correct diagnosis and the needs
- 6:49for the treatment not so far from the area of residency of
- 6:55the patients. And this is an effort of of the
- 6:58group to clarify what is essential.
- 7:01First level, second level, third level, the need for discussing
- 7:06the diagnosis, the suspected diagnosis at the referral level
- 7:11and then offered the opportunity to treat the patients as close
- 7:15as possible to their residency. So it is not so easy, but so
- 7:20we're trying to do this. But it's not something that the
- 7:24guidelines can go and, and organize in the, in the text
- 7:29because there is such a heterogeneity of realities out
- 7:33there. And these are guidelines that
- 7:35are, that are read across the world of global guidelines.
- 7:38Although they're European in origin, they will be, they will
- 7:42be read in the, in the Americas, in Asia, in global fashion.
- 7:47So it's difficult to come and organize things that are
- 7:50extremely heterogeneous. It is a rare disease, it is a
- 7:54difficult disease even for experts.
- 7:57And if you have to be treated firstly, diagnosed correctly and
- 8:02then treated, it is important that, as the professor said,
- 8:06Federico said, it is important that a person with experience is
- 8:10looking at these things and a group, A-Team, a
- 8:13multidisciplinary team, where it is possible to have it, is there
- 8:17because that offers the patient the possibility of survival,
- 8:22which is significantly higher than if you're treated standard
- 8:25of care in some kind of discipline, viable environment.
- 8:28So with respect, with the difference, huge difference that
- 8:31there is not only in countries, but areas of the world, this
- 8:35must be said about these diseases because they, they are,
- 8:39they are very difficult. We we had recently a meeting in
- 8:42Asia. In different countries it's
- 8:44extremely different how diagnostic and interpretation is
- 8:49depending on the region you're taught talking about.
- 8:52So the first the big challenge is diagnosis, but then can you
- 8:56summarize how these guidelines approach the treatment in first
- 9:00line? Which are the main points you
- 9:03want to highlight? Yes, the, the, the first line is
- 9:09of course something that needs as much evidence as possible.
- 9:12We are, we work in these guidelines with levels of
- 9:15evidence and in, in the, in the recognized international
- 9:19terminology. And as you can imagine in
- 9:22diseases that are rare, there will never be the big trials
- 9:26with hundreds or thousands of patients like you have in some
- 9:30other some other sections of oncology like breast cancer,
- 9:35colon cancer. This is a rare disease.
- 9:37So there will be small trials. The evidence will be relatively
- 9:41weak and we have to work with that.
- 9:43But these guidelines today have much more clinical trial based
- 9:47evidence than guidelines from 10 years ago, even if it is a rare
- 9:52disease. And we have introduced in the
- 9:55first line a more refined application of standard tools
- 10:01that existed so far. The use, for example, of a
- 10:06chopped backbone CHOP is an abbreviation for
- 10:09cyclophosphamide, hydroxydonor, rubicine, vincristine and
- 10:13Prednisolone, with or without the addition of a topocyte, with
- 10:17or without the use of a stem cell cell transplant of some
- 10:22kind, autologous or allogeneic. But these things were also
- 10:26mentioned in decade ago. What is different is that it is
- 10:30a refined mentioning based on recent clinical trials, based
- 10:35also on world evidence from registries, population base and
- 10:41also from experience with long term follow up.
- 10:43So this refinement is something that we didn't have in the past.
- 10:48We have looked at for example a toposite has been a long
- 10:51discussion in the community. But the, the guidelines now say,
- 10:55we know that a toposite has time after time shown an effect in
- 11:00elk positive ALCL. It it has been shown in
- 11:04prospective trials and it has been shown in several
- 11:08retrospective analysis. So you can, you can say that the
- 11:12use of a topazide in elk positive ALCL is not just at the
- 11:18same level as the other entities.
- 11:21Elk positive ALCL seem to have a predilection, seems to have a
- 11:25specifically good response compared to the other entities.
- 11:29So this is what I mean by refinement of what we told
- 11:33people 10 years ago. In first line therapy, what we
- 11:38clearly tried to do is to offer the opportunity to select the
- 11:43right management, the right approach according to stage of
- 11:48the disease and histologic subtype.
- 11:51And when is better to use CHOP, CHOP, eat a chopper plus a
- 11:57topocide. When adding novel agents like
- 12:02brintuximabedotin in anaplastic large cell lymphoma setting.
- 12:08And also the the more appropriate approach for
- 12:11offering a stem cell transplant at the end of induction therapy
- 12:16in those entities where it is clear that this could be of
- 12:20benefit. Although we are still lacking
- 12:22prospective randomized at the clinical trial.
- 12:25So just for summarizing this aspect of first line therapy,
- 12:29first the panel suggests to consider patients for enrollment
- 12:34in clinical trial. Second, in terms of standard
- 12:39care, those people that like to check for our deadlines have
- 12:44three figures to summarizing the flow chart for patients with
- 12:50nodal extranodal and low clinic disease.
- 12:53So we hope for a lot of opportunities to try to find the
- 12:58right place for selecting treatment for the patient.
- 13:03So just to just to, just to mention on the on the transplant
- 13:08have we have the trials that have been published one year ago
- 13:122024 showing for example the randomized trial run in France
- 13:18and Germany, the AATT trial published in 2021 in blood and
- 13:25then again now in 2024 with a long term follow up.
- 13:29This information with a with a comparison between autologous
- 13:35and allogeneic transplant in the front line setting was an
- 13:39important information for the community because you you could
- 13:43see and confirmed in both the final analysis of 21 and the
- 13:48long term follow up of 24 that what you gain in terms of better
- 13:55duration of response with a Nello transplant in.
- 13:59In other words, less relapses, lymphoma related relapses you
- 14:04lose on in term of transplant related mortality.
- 14:08So there is a toxicity from the modality which has less relapses
- 14:13at at the end of the day, they balance each other completely.
- 14:16So there is no difference. So this information is important
- 14:20for the community. And this is another example of
- 14:24applying things at at the right time, the right thing at the
- 14:28right time. The guideline ends up if you, if
- 14:32you have a transplant eligible patient saying, well transplant
- 14:35should be autologous in the upfront setting where you don't
- 14:40where you still have the LO option in the relapse setting to
- 14:44salvage your patient if the patient relapses.
- 14:47So this isn't quite important message from from the guideline,
- 14:51which is sustained not just by a gut feeling, but by a randomized
- 14:56trial that has been published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology
- 14:59just 12 months ago. Is there anything you would like
- 15:03to highlight about the second line so the relapse?
- 15:05Setting. Yes.
- 15:06So we started the from the the knowledge that so far the
- 15:11outcome of patients with refractory or relapsed
- 15:16peripheral tisel lymphoma is usually dismal.
- 15:18So there is a need for improvement and the deadlines
- 15:22also offer the best evidence on the new agents that have to be
- 15:28considered for patients with relapsed or refractory disease
- 15:34together with the best use of Autolu stem cell transplant and
- 15:38also other innovative approach. But probably professor for the
- 15:42more already can just underline some specific benefit of new
- 15:48agency in specific subtypes of relapse of the T cell lymphoma.
- 15:53I want to just wrap up on around the approach of the stem cell
- 15:57transplant that in the guidelines you will see
- 15:59autologous transplant applied to frontline approach with some
- 16:02notable exception exceptions For example, the hepatosplenic T
- 16:06cell Informa and the monomorphic epitheliotropic intestinal T
- 16:13cell Informa. The Michael, those two we
- 16:15recommend allogeneic upfront otherwise most of the others
- 16:20nodal and externodal will be would be the recommendation of
- 16:26photologists. Whereas in the relapse setting
- 16:28all chemosensitive patients that are transplant eligible are
- 16:32recommended treated by allogeneic transplant.
- 16:36This is a major pattern and for the leukemic entities that we
- 16:41have in these guidelines, we didn't have them ten years ago.
- 16:44If they are chemosensitive in the three aggressive entities,
- 16:49then we recommend to treat them or consolidate them with
- 16:53allogeneic transplant in the relapse setting.
- 16:56One comment is also a new trend surging significantly in the
- 17:02field of T cell informers of the importance of minimal residual
- 17:06disease. We know minimal residual disease
- 17:09from leukemia, we know it from mental cell Informa, We know it
- 17:13even for a diffuse large B cell Informa.
- 17:16It is a topic that is more and more usual in these discussions.
- 17:20But for T cell entities, it has been a challenge also in this
- 17:24field because the T cell receptor rearrangement clone
- 17:28clonality has not been easy to demonstrate.
- 17:32But today the tool of circulating T circulating tumor
- 17:37DNA, CT DNA really taking speed and, and and and increasing in
- 17:44publications. I just came home from from a
- 17:47meeting a few days ago. There was a huge publication
- 17:50that shows patients we call incomplete remission with
- 17:54standard of care tools today, which is the PET CT scanning
- 17:59metabolic complete remission. Almost half of them that are
- 18:03called CRS by PET CT, they still have minimal as usual disease if
- 18:08you if you look at it with MRD. So actually in shop only treated
- 18:15PTCL in that publication at the end of the day, 29% of the
- 18:20patients treated had MRD negative status at the end of
- 18:25the treatment. So what I'm saying is we will
- 18:28learn in time already, not in time, but it's already there.
- 18:32It's already now we will learn that MRD will give us new way of
- 18:38approaching the disease because what we have been calling CR
- 18:42until now is maybe not CR. Is this already in the
- 18:46guideline? The MRDN.
- 18:48We just mentioned it, but CT DNA will be one of the two topics in
- 18:53my opinion, that will dominate the update of the next
- 18:57guideline. If you, if you ask me what,
- 19:00what, what will happen for in the next guideline?
- 19:05What do you expect to be the new hot topics in the next
- 19:10guidelines? And of course, in guidelines,
- 19:13you cannot have publications that are so recent that you
- 19:17need, you need more confirmation, you need third
- 19:20publication that shows the same. So it takes a little bit of
- 19:23time. Guidelines will always be a
- 19:25little bit the breaking news of of of the field, but I think the
- 19:30next guideline will contain it so.
- 19:33There's this concept of living guideline.
- 19:36Yes, yeah, it is. It is necessary.
- 19:39Otherwise, you know, they become like dinosaurs, they become like
- 19:43some some stone in past, which is very interesting to see from
- 19:48an archaeological point of view. But if you if you have to work
- 19:52with that every day in your clinic, then you would like to
- 19:55have something more living. And the NCCN has done that.
- 19:59We try to do the same. Exactly 1 of the aims of this
- 20:04group of people supported by ESMA is to update guidelines as
- 20:10timely as possible. I don't know if we will be able
- 20:14to do twice the year or three times per year or once in two
- 20:19years. However, once we will have
- 20:22relevant information coming from research being the clinical
- 20:27trials or other biological news. Of course, Francesco and all the
- 20:33group is in agreement with the discuss the opportunity to
- 20:37create an update or to inform the community that there are
- 20:41news compared to the already released deadlines.
- 20:45This is very important it. Must be also easier by the
- 20:49collaboration between ESMO and EHA to keep updating this
- 20:53guidance to join the airports. It's good that societies,
- 20:56European societies show they can work together and we, I mean, it
- 21:00is the first time in T cell informers.
- 21:02But if you look at myeloma, they're just being published the
- 21:05ESMO AI myeloma guideline, common guideline.
- 21:10So there are good examples and other that are continuously
- 21:15produced. Get back to your question about
- 21:17about refractory, relapsed refractory disease.
- 21:20The guidelines also have caught some of the very, very new
- 21:24publications about novel drugs that have been clinical trial
- 21:29based. And just to anecdotally for this
- 21:33podcast, I can tell you we got the results of the clinical
- 21:38trial, the SPIRIT trials by the professor of Chai that published
- 21:43that in Lensity Hematology in the summer of 2000 and it
- 21:47appeared in Density Hematology. Actually I think it was one week
- 21:51or two weeks before we had to send the manuscript out in
- 21:55external review and and we sat in the group.
- 21:57Well, we would like to have this publication mentioned.
- 22:01So it was very last second. We caught that bus and put and
- 22:04put that publication in our references.
- 22:07And it is a treatment of external NKT lymphoma that is a
- 22:12typical nasal type lymphoma present in Europe but more
- 22:16frequent in Asia where the use of checkpoint inhibitor, which
- 22:22is a novel drug in the context of NKT lymphoma.
- 22:27But it has unique favorable effect combined with the usual
- 22:33Aspergenase containing regiments.
- 22:36So if you add upfront, actually this trial was upfront first
- 22:40line, it came on top of results that we already had in small
- 22:44phase two trials in the relapse setting.
- 22:46But this upfront trial with overall response rate of almost
- 22:5180% that that has been completely new in the field.
- 22:57So I'm very happy and a little bit proud that we had this
- 23:00publication included at the last minute in the in these in these
- 23:06guidelines. So Professor Federico, what
- 23:09would be your take away message for the audience?
- 23:12The the most important recommendation in my view is one
- 23:15of you suspect to have a patients with peripheral test
- 23:19cell lymphoma. Please check for a correct
- 23:23diagnosis. This is first, if you are not
- 23:26all the facilities in your area, please connect with the centers
- 23:31that can help you in confirming or not confirming the diagnosis.
- 23:38This is the first step. Now correct diagnosis will
- 23:42translate in the best opportunity to offer the right
- 23:47treatment and the best options for cure.
- 23:51So the second is if you have a patients with a confirmed
- 23:54diagnosis of peripheral lymphoma, consider the
- 23:58opportunity to enroll the patients in a clinical trial.
- 24:02Third, if you have to offer just a standard care, please follow
- 24:06the deadlines. We have recently released that,
- 24:09in my opinion, they have one of the most relevant efforts to
- 24:14help physicians to make the right decision for the patients.
- 24:20And I asked the same question to you, Professor Amore, what would
- 24:22be for you the take away message for everybody to go and read
- 24:27this guideline? Because it's a very complex
- 24:29subject, we cannot cover the whole thing in.
- 24:32I would say to the to the reader of the guideline, the
- 24:37recommendation how to read the guideline is Please.
- 24:42If you mean it seriously, then read the guideline in its
- 24:46entirety. Read the main manuscript, but
- 24:49read also the supplementary of the guideline.
- 24:52The supplementary is only supplementary because there is a
- 24:56limit of words from the journals.
- 25:00The things in the supplementary are important things,
- 25:03particularly in T cell lymphomas where we have so many entities
- 25:07and particularly the very rare entities that many physicians
- 25:11feel a little bit shaky about because they maybe have not seen
- 25:15such a patient ever. So my recommendation is please
- 25:18read the entire guideline. In my opinion, you have not read
- 25:22the guideline if you don't read both the main manuscript and the
- 25:26supplementary as a recommendation for what to do to
- 25:31your pace to your patient with preferred T cell informers.
- 25:34As as it was said by Massimo, by Professor Federico, the the
- 25:38importance of trying to put patient in a clinical trial is
- 25:42just because what happens in a clinical trial is that you have
- 25:46more precision about what's going on.
- 25:49You gather information, you have a monitoring of your patients
- 25:54and those that have looked at it.
- 25:56There are some interesting, interesting studies done on plus
- 26:00minus clinical trial within a certain disease.
- 26:04And there is a difference in in survival, not because the
- 26:08clinical trial was the best clinical trial in the world, but
- 26:11the fact that the patient is monitored and is carefully
- 26:15followed that makes it less likely to have complications
- 26:20that come maybe suddenly without anybody expecting it and also a
- 26:26better care of the patient. So there is an there is an
- 26:30advantage to have a patient in a clinical trial.
- 26:33But the problem is and any reader of the guidelines will of
- 26:37course agree that if there is no clinical trial, which is the
- 26:41most frequent situation you are in, then the recommendation to
- 26:45to bring your patient in the clinical trial is not so easy.
- 26:49And sometimes you can get a clinical trial, you have to send
- 26:51your patient out of the country and that is also a little bit
- 26:55heavy for the patient and the family.
- 26:57But but that, that would be best.
- 26:59And we have highlighted that in the guidelines and importantly
- 27:04that disciplines talk together. So it is important to have a
- 27:08tertiary center. I know there will be different
- 27:12realities around the world, but this multidisciplinary approach
- 27:16from pathology in one end to clinical, clinical intervention
- 27:21in the other end, our treatment will never be better than the
- 27:25diagnosis we are offered from the from the diagnostic side.
- 27:30If the diagnosis is wrong, our treatment will be wrong or not
- 27:34appropriate. So, and I have the impression in
- 27:38this particular guideline, the first key aspect is really a
- 27:42correct diagnosis because there are so many entities.
- 27:46And from what I could see in the guideline also each entity is
- 27:50treated in a different way, in a slightly different way in any
- 27:53case. So it's key to go and look at
- 27:56all the details and be precise. So you know you have a
- 28:00heterogeneity here which is practically unseen.
- 28:04I know there are variants in mental cell lymphoma, there are
- 28:07variants in diffuse large B cell lymphomas, but but these are
- 28:11biologically completely different diseases.
- 28:15If you think about the lymphoma arising from a breast implant
- 28:19and the lymphoma arising from a patient with celiac disease in
- 28:23the in the small bowel, these two diseases are so far from
- 28:28each other. OK, they derive from T cell from
- 28:31T cells, but they are two complete different planets.
- 28:35So is there anything else you would like to add for the
- 28:38audience? My wish is to ask the audience
- 28:42to use the deadlines and in case they need some more explanation,
- 28:47contact us and we will do our best also to clarify.
- 28:53And I would say to the audience, stay tuned for CTDNA and
- 28:57combination of new drugs and combination of new drugs, HTAC
- 29:01inhibitors and easy H2 inhibitors, both oral.
- 29:05So that is just some teasers for the next guidelines.
- 29:09OK, so there. Thanks a lot.
- 29:11Thank you to the audience for listening and if you enjoyed
- 29:14this episode, please like it and subscribe to our channel.
- 29:18Stay tuned for more episodes of EHA Unplugged.