EHA-SWG 2017 | Rare Lymphomas: Signaling Pathways in B-cell Lymphomas

On March 10^th, at the EHA-SWG Rare Lymphomas Scientific Meeting 2017 in Barcelona, Spain, Martin Dreyling chaired a session on Lymphoma Biology. The first presentation of this session was by Georg Lenz, of University Hospital Münster, Germany, on the topic of ‘Signaling pathways in B-cell lymphomas’. Below are the key clinical highlights from this presentation:

• DLBCL subtypes (Activated B-Cell-like DLBCL and Germinal Center B-Cell-like DLBCL) have differences in NF-kB controlled gene expression
  • GCB: lower PTEN expression, PTEN re-expression results in lower MYC expression
  • ABC: PTEN is more highly expressed
• Ibrutinib less effective in GCB than ABC DLBCL
• PI3K inhibition downregulates NF-kB signaling
• Data suggest increased efficacy in in vitro and in vivo use of combination treatment with ibrutinib and PI3K alpha/delta inhibitor

Georg Lenz concluded the talk by mentioning a study investigating use of copanlisib, a PI3K alpha/delta inhibitor, in the treatment of R/R DLBCL patients, along with profiling the patients’ molecular characteristics which could help identify markers of response.