MALIGNANT LYMPHOMAS, WITH SPECIAL FOCUS ON MANTLE CELL LYMPHOMA: BIOLOGY, NOVEL TREATMENTS AND SIDE-EFFECTS

Mantle cell lymphoma is the malignant lymphoma with the poorest long-term survival and today the descicions for the best first line treatment is unknown. I am investigating a paradigm shift of introducing oral tyrosine kinase inhibitors (chemotherapy-free) in first line. Therefore, the identification of also new treatment predictive subgroups is urgently needed.

My aims are to investigate and enable targeted treatment instead of solely chemotherapy to increase efficacy in those with poor prognosis, such as mantle cell lymphoma, and reducing long-term side-effects in curable lymphomas, e.g., in Hodgkin lymphoma.

I am the Swedish investigator of a phase III trial comparing treatment with the tyrosine kinase inhibitor ibrutinib to chemotherapy in elderly with mantle cell lymphoma in first line.

I am also Swedish principal investigator of a follow-up phase II trial of the next generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor, acalabrutinib, with minimal residual disease monitoring to determine treatment length. Patient selection to these trials will be studied.

We will also integrate clinical, biological (utilizing the U-CAN biobank) and register data for lymphoma patients to study the relations between, the genetic features of the tumour cells, microenvironment and the personal characteristics of the patient.

I strongly believe that an overall improvement for lymphoma patients will only be reached if we embrace the full care pathway from biology, via treatments and late effects.