Novartis drug could signal new era in treatment of nonHodgkin lymphoma
Patients with an advanced form of an aggressive blood cancer who had initially responded to Novartis’s new type of gene-modifying immunotherapy continued to respond at least six months after treatment, according to updated data released at a medical meeting on Sunday. Among 46 patients with at least six months of follow-up after treatment with Novartis’s Kymriah for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), 30% still had a complete response, meaning no detectable sign of cancer, with another 7% achieving a partial response. The results indicate that in the 81-patient study, those with no sign of cancer after three months remained relapse-free at six months and beyond, researchers reported at the American Society of Hematology meeting in Atlanta. "Patients that are in complete remission by 3-6 months are going to have durable remissions," said Dr Stephen Schuster, the trial’s lead investigator, who has patients from an earlier pilot study alive more than three years after Kymriah treatm...
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