Video

What are the main classes of drugs used to treat follicular lymphoma?

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• November 18, 2024

Description

Follicular lymphoma is treated using various drug classes, including monoclonal antibodies, chemotherapies, oral targeted therapies, immunomodulators, bispecific antibodies, and CAR-T cells. These therapies target lymphoma cells and often work by activating the immune system to attack the cancer.

On this video

Healthtree contact Kami J Maddocks, MD

Kami J Maddocks, MD

Follicular Lymphoma Specialist

Transcript

 

What are the main classes of drugs used to treat follicular lymphoma?

There are actually several different classes of drugs used to treat follicular lymphoma. So there is monoclonal antibodies. And those are antibodies to a protein on the lymphoma cell, that directly target that cell and activate the immune system to work. Those can be used alone or in combination with other therapies. There are chemotherapies that are used to treat follicular lymphoma. Those are almost always combined with some sort of type of monoclonal antibody as well.

There are different oral targeted therapies used to treat follicular lymphoma. There's a class of drugs called immunomodulator, that are used in combination with monoclonal antibodies to treat follicular lymphoma. There are bispecific antibodies that, are similar to monoclonal antibodies that they target a protein on the cancer cell or lymphoma cell, but they also target a protein on the T cell, which is another immune cell. There is chimeric antigen receptor T cells or CAR-T cells, which are genetically re-engineered cells to target the lymphoma and activate the immune system.

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