Alimta

... Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma - Investigational Targeted Therapy May Offer Progress home xml feeds news alerts weekly newsletter jobs advertising contact us Archive Search Medical Abbreviations www.medilexicon.com Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma - Investigational Targeted Therapy May Offer ProgressCategory: Lymphoma/Leukemia News Article Date: 12 Dec 2005 Data offers evidence that an investigational targeted therapy may be useful in treating patients with the most common form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL).

The five-year survival rate of U.S.

patients with NHL is only 59 percent with standard therapies, according to the Lymphoma Research Foundation.

Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is the most frequent form of NHL (1).

Conventional therapies improve outcomes for some patients, but new treatment options are always needed.

Phase II data presented today at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) 47th Annual Meeting and Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, showed enzastaurin HCl, an investigational compound from Lilly Oncology, slowed the progression of DLBCL in several patients pretreated with chemotherapy.

"The use of enzastaurin in relapsed diffuse large B-cell lymphoma is important for two reasons," said Margaret A.

Shipp, M.D.

director of Dana- Farber/Harvard Cancer Center's lymphoma program and the senior investigator in the clinical trial.

"One, it represents a rational inhibitor of an identified target and, two, several patients with aggressive chemo-insensitive disease have had ...

Read more...