[Drug therapy of lymphomas]

The therapy of lymphomas has undergone a major expansion during the last decade. Novel therapeutic targets have appeared beyond classical chemotherapeutic combinations. These novel drugs have very pronounced action across lymphoma types, and their toxicity profile is usually better tolerable compared to standard chemotherapies. These new therapies are enabling us to offer treatment to those patients who have refractory disease, and we had no option to treat them before these drugs. The author describes several new therapeutic options. New chemotherapeutic drugs are pixantrone and bendamustin. Monoclonal antibodies, like rituximab, ofatumumab, obinotuzumab are described, and conjugated antibodies like brentuximab vedotin and inotuzumab ozogamicin are also discussed. The bispecific antibody blinatumomab can modulate the immune response, and the new class of immune checkpoint inhibitors (pembrolizumab, nivolumab) is also discussed. Therapies targeting the epigenetic regulatory network are also important. Several studies reported promising results of abexinostat, vorinostat, belinostat and panobinostat. The new class of immunomodulatory drugs (imids) is also growing, results with thalidomid and lenalidomid are discussed. The proteasome inhibitors are offering new combinations, with the use of bortezomid, carfilzomib, ixazomib. All these new drugs described above offer to the physician several therapeutic options to better treat patients with lymphoma.