Aggressive lymphoma: Low doses of approved drug switches on pathway that allows chemotherapy to kill cancer
Researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, who led the study published in Cancer Discovery, say their strategy has the potential to change the standard of care for patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) — and possibly other kinds of tumors. The targeted drug they used, azacitidine, is designed to reawaken molecular mechanisms that typically trigger cell death but are switched off as cancer — including lymphoma — progresses. The research team discovered that pretreating aggressive lymphoma with azacitidine enables the death signal to turn back on when chemotherapy triggers it. In a proof-of-concept, Phase 3 study of 12 high-risk DLBCL patients led by Dr. …