T-cell Lymphoma Forum

Figure 1. National Comprehensive Cancer Network algorithm for treatment of T-cell lymphoma. AITL: Angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma; ALCL: Anaplastic large cell lymphoma; CR: Complete response; EATL: Enteropathy-associated T-cell lymphoma; HSCT: Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation; IPI: International prognostic index; NR: Non-response; PR: Partial response; PTCL-NOS: Peripheral T-cell lymphoma, not otherwise specified; RT: Radiotherapy.
(Figure omitted. See article PDF.)

Figure 2. Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation strategy for T-cell lymphoma. IPI: International prognostic index; HSCT: Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.
(Figure omitted. See article PDF.)

Conference history

The T-cell Lymphoma Forum was a continuation of an earlier conference, the Peripheral T-cell Lymphoma Forum, first held in Washington, DC, USA, on 18-20 September, 2008. The current forum provided a venue for discussing the classification, epidemiology, prognosis, pathogenesis and conventional and novel treatment approaches of T-cell lymphomas (TCLs). The meeting targeted hematologists, oncologists and scientists interested in TCL research and treatment. Experts from the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and North America attended the 2010 meeting in Maui, HI, USA, on 28-30 January 2010. The chairmen were Francine Foss (Yale Cancer Center, CT, USA) and Kensei Tobinai (National Cancer Center Hospital, Tokyo, Japan).

Classification & epidemiology

Julie Vose (University of Nebraska Medical Center, NE, USA) discussed the current WHO classification of mature TCL and natural killer (NK) cell lymphomas (Box 1). There were geographic differences in the incidences of different lymphoma types: the most common type in North America was peripheral TCL, not otherwise specified (PTCL-NOS); in Europe it was angioimmunoblastic TCL (AITL); and in Asia NK-cell lymphoma. In areas endemic for human T-lymphotrophic virus (HTLV)-1, including Japan and certain parts of Taiwan, adult TCL/leukemia (ATLL) was most prevalent.

Molecular changes

Masao Seto (Aichi Cancer Center Research Institute, Nagoya, Japan) described the use of global analysis of genomic changes and gene expression in providing information on pathogenesis and new leads in treatment. In ATLL, the acute and lymphoma subtypes had significantly different genomic alterations. PTCL could also be categorized into genomic imbalance (+) and genomic imbalance (-) subtypes. Interestingly, the genomic alterations of the ATLL lymphoma subtype were similar to the PTCL genomic imbalance (+) subtype. This similarity was reflected in both lymphomas having an equally poor prognosis, compared with the genomic imbalance (-) subtype of PTCL.

Gene-expression profiling (GEP) showed that PTCL-NOS...