Dr. Shah on Emerging Developments in MCL

Bijal D. Shah, MD, medical oncology, Moffitt Cancer Center, discusses some of the emerging developments on the horizon in mantle cell lymphoma (MCL).

The most complicated patient with MCL is the ibrutinib-resistant patient, particularly those who develop ibrutinib resistance early in the disease course, Shah says. These individuals tend to have extraordinarily aggressive lymphoma that tend to be very chemotherapy resistant. Data from Moffitt Cancer Center show that the median survival when someone progresses on ibrutinib is approximately 2 months. About three-fourths of the patients who die within 2 months, die within the first 2 or 3 weeks.

Researchers have been profiling patients with MCL to try to understand what drugs work and what do not.