Recent Advances in the Treatment of Peripheral T-Cell Lymphoma

Peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL) is a heterogeneous group of clinically aggressive diseases associated with poor outcome. Despite progress in the last several years, resulting in a deeper understanding of the natural history and biology of PTCL based on molecular profiling and next-generation sequencing, there is a need for improvement in efficacy of chemotherapeutic regimens for newly diagnosed patients. Treatment in the front-line setting is most often cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone (CHOP) or CHOP-like regimens, which are associated with a high failure rate and frequent relapses. Trials evaluating intensive chemotherapy have resulted in variable success in prolonging event-free survival, but overall survival has remained unchanged. Furthermore, this strategy is limited to patients who are in complete remission after initial anthracycline-based chemotherapy. Many patients are ineligible for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation because of age or failure to achieve remission. For relapsed disease, advances have been made in the therapeutic arsenal for PTCL. New drugs investigated in phase II studies have achieved response rates between 10% and 30%. However, to date the identification of new therapies has been largely empiric, and long-term remissions are the exception to the rule. Current patient outcomes suggest the need for the identification and development of active and biologically rational therapies to improve disease management and to extend the duration of response with iterative biomarker evaluation. This review covers the management of PTCL and focuses on new agents and therapeutic combinations, based on a better understanding of biology and pathogenesis of the disease.

Recent progress in understanding of the biology and pathogenesis of peripheral T-cell lymphoma has led to the emergence of new drugs. Unfortunately, this has not been met with similar advances in outcome improvement. Anthracycline-containing regimens, mostly cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone (CHOP), are considered the standard of care, although the best first-line approach remains to be defined. In the relapsed and refractory settings, several new agents achieved response rates between 10% and 30%, although these drugs do not significantly affect survival rates. Therapeutic options based on better molecular characterization of various histological types and combinations with the CHOP regimen or synergic combinations of new drugs may lead to better outcomes.