A New Frontline Treatment Option for Hodgekin Lymphoma

In this Edition of The Onco'Zine Brief Peter Hofland, Ph.D and Sonia Portillo talk with Joseph M. Connors, MD., FRCPC, Clinical Director, Center for Lymphoid Cancer (Retired 2018) and Clinical Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Medical Oncology, at the University of British Columbia and the chair of the Lymphoma Tumor Group for the British Columbia Cancer Agency Dr. Connors is also the lead investigator of the ECHELON-1 clinical trial, a trial focusing on a new treatment option for Hodgekin Lymphoma. In this interview Dr. Connor talks about the some of the latest results from the ECHELON-1 clinical trial, which tests an antibody-drug conjugate or ADC called brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris; Seattle Genetics/Takeda) for patients with advanced classical Hodgkin Lymphoma. The phase III ECHELON-1 study, was designed to evaluate brentuximab vedotin as part of a front-line chemotherapy regimen for previously untreated advanced classic Hodgkin lymphoma. The trial met its primary endpoint of modified progression-free survival in 2017. The latest data from the study was presented during the 2017 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting & Expostion and simultaneous publication in The New England Journal of Medicine. Now, brentuximab vedotin is an approved drug and commercially available in the United States. The ECHELON-1 trial was important for the approval by the FDA of a so called ‘fifth approval or line expansion’ of the drug.