Hodgkin's Disease

Description

Immunotherapy

Investigative approaches to Hodgkin's disease are immunotherapies, agents that take advantage of the patients' own immune factors to attack the disease.

One important approach uses genetically designed immune factors called monoclonal antibodies (MAb) that recognize and attack specific molecules found on the surface of cells associated with HD.

Rituximab (Rituxan) was the first monoclonal antibody to be approved for any cancer. It is an unconjugated MAb that targets the CD-20 antigen, which is found on most B-cell lymphomas and normal mature B-cells (although not stem cells). It is used in non-Hodgkin's lymphomas but it may have benefits for some patients with Hodgkin's disease as well. For example, an early study reported very good results in patients with lymphocyte-predominant Hodgkin disease (LPHD), which contains the CD-20 antigen.

Investigators are also studying very specific tumor-killing agents composed of fragments of MAbs or plant or bacterial targets that deliver the agent to into the tumor cells.

Another approach uses radioimmunotherapy, which binds tiny amounts of radioactive materials to antibodies for delivery into the tumor.

One experimental therapy is based on certain immune factors called killer T-cells that specifically attack a subtype of the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) expressed by Hodgkin's cells in certain patients. Researchers draw these T-cells from the patient and expand them in the laboratory. They are then infused back into the patient with the expectation that the T-cells will attack the virus in the Hodgkin's cells, killing the cancer cells as well. To date, this therapy has shown some activity, but no cure.