Adding to a growing list of disease applications, nivolumab is efficacious against primary Hodgkin lymphoma.

This is according to research presented at the European Haematology Association 21^st congress in Copenhagen

Hodgkin lymphoma typically affects young men and women in their 30s.

Although it is highly curable with the current combination of chemo and radiation therapy, approximately 20% of patients will not be cured with first line regimens.

Second line treatment typically involves different types of chemotherapy followed by a stem cell transplant.

However, patients who are not cured with a stem cell transplant have a very poor prognosis.

Accordingly, the development of new agents for patients with relapsed Hodgkin lymphoma is of high priority.

A few years ago, brentuximab vedotin was the first drug to be approved by the FDA for treatment of relapsed Hodgkin lymphoma.

In more than three decades, nivolumab is the second drug that is now expected to be approved for this indication.

The registrational trial, Checkmate 205, is a Phase 2 evaluating nivolumab with classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL).

Reported here are the results from one cohort: patients with cHL after the failure of both ASCT and subsequent brentuximab vedotin treatment.

The primary endpoint of objective response rate (ORR) per an independent radiologic review committee (IRRC) was 66.3% and 73% by investigator response (secondary endpoint).

Median time to response was 2.1 months, and median duration of remission was 7.8 months (95% CI: 6.6-NE).

The majority of responses (62.3%) were ongoing at the time of analysis.

In patients who had no prior response to most recent prior brentuximab vedotin (n=43), nivolumab treatment resulted in an IRRC-assessed objective response rate of 72%.

The safety profile of nivolumab was consistent with previously reported data in this tumour type.

Source: EHA 2016