Over the past 10 years, the therapeutic armamentarium against lymphomas has expanded way beyond the immunochemotherapy standard regimen based on rituximab, the first anti-CD20 antibody targeting B lymphocytes. This was achieved thanks to a better understanding of B-cell lymphoma biology, from the key mutations involved in lymphomagenesis to the crosstalk of cancer cells with their supportive microenvironment. However, despite significant breakthroughs with targeted therapies development and new immunotherapies, clinical responses are still highly variable that makes it difficult to predict the efficacy of a given treatment.
Thus, in the SITI lab, we study the impact of novels drugs on malignant cells and normal immune components of the tumor microenvironment through the immune monitoring of patients during treatment.
We mainly use the blood compartment, easily accessible, allowing the analysis of both the circulating lymphoma cells (potential surrogate of lymph node tumor cells), but also of the immune cells, the activation of which being possibly the reflection of the systemic reaction to cancer.
Our final goal is to identify blood biomarkers that are predictive of treatment efficacy, henceforth allowing the individualized follow-up of disease evolution and adjustment of the treatment.
The SITI laboratory is currently in charge of the immunomonitoring of seven clinical protocols, among which:
- the FLIRT trial comparing two administration routes of rituximab in patients diagnosed with low grade follicular lymphoma,
- the GALEN trial investigating lenalidomide, a medicine that belongs to the family of the immunomodulatory drugs, association with obinutuzumab, a new anti-CD20 antibody, in high burden follicular lymphoma,
- the NIVEAU trial testing the improvement of outcome by nivolumab addition to immunochemotherapy in patients diagnosed with aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphomas.
