The Standard of Care in Relapsed Refractory CD30+ Lymphoma

CD30-positive (CD30+) lymphomas are a heterogeneous group of hematological malignancies that share the same antigen. Over recent decades, advances in therapeutic management of these diseases have considerably improved clinical outcomes. Overall, the two main CD30+ lymphomas – Hodgkin’s lymphoma and systemic anaplastic large cell lymphoma – are associated with a favourable prognosis after first-line therapy. Nevertheless, optimal therapeutic strategies are needed to manage relapsed or refractory CD30+ lymphomas. The introduction of novel targeted approaches, such as brentuximab vedotin (BV), expands the therapeutic armamentarium and provides new perspectives in terms of clinical efficacy despite heavily pretreated disease, with reasonable toxicity to patients whose quality of life is often impaired by the disease and repeated treatments. The standard of care (SoC) for these malignancies is being refined and will be clarified with results from ongoing and upcoming Phase II/III clinical trials. Clinical studies are currently assessing the use of BV in a broad range of CD30+ lymphomas. Over time, frontline strategies and SoC will be refined in order to improve outcomes for patients with relapsed disease, while allowing clinicians to expand patient selection and provide long-term remission in a wide variety of clinical settings.