Dr. Patel on Emerging Therapeutic Strategies in MCL

Krish Patel, MD, medical oncologist, Swedish Cancer Institute, discusses emerging therapeutic strategies and ongoing research in mantle cell lymphoma (MCL).

Research with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy is still preliminary in MCL, but it will be interesting to see how the modality impacts the paradigm, explains Patel. As in other lymphomas, there is a lot of excitement about this approach, but in MCL, it is too early to understand what the role of that therapy will be.

Additionally, there is a lot of excitement surrounding readouts of the some of the combination studies that are now being done with BCL-2 inhibitors, adds Patel. For example, combinations of BTK inhibitors and BCL-2 inhibitors, such as ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and venetoclax (Venclexta). Those studies are being designed slightly differently than historical studies with a fixed duration of therapy. It will be insightful to see how different classes of therapy with potentially different toxicity profiles fare when combined with a BCL-2 inhibitor like venetoclax, concludes Patel.