T-Cell Lymphoma: Relapsed/Refractory

The term “relapsed” refers to disease that reappears or grows again after a period of remission.

The term “refractory” is used to describe when the lymphoma does not respond to treatment (meaning that the cancer cells continue to grow) or when the response to treatment does not last very long.

Patients with relapsed disease are usually treated with combination chemotherapy such as ICE (ifosfamide, carboplatin, and etoposide) if stem cell transplantation is contemplated as the next step in therapy. However, some regimens or transplant might not be suited for everyone because of their high toxicity levels. Less toxic single agent therapies are also available and might induce a long-lasting remission in such patients. These therapies include belinostat (Beleodaq), brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris), pralatrexate (Folotyn), and romidepsin (Istodax). These drugs are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for patients who have relapsed or those who have not responded to their first line of chemotherapy.

To learn more about T-cell lymphoma, download the T-Cell Lymphoma Fact Sheet.