Investigational drugs for T-cell lymphoma

Introduction: Peripheral T-cell lymphomas (PTCL) represent a heterogeneous group of malignancies frequently associated with a poor outcome. The frontline treatment strategy for PTCL relies mostly on CHOP or CHOP-like regimens, which are associated with a high failure rate and frequent relapses.

Areas covered: In this review, the authors present recently registered drugs and their positioning in the therapeutic armamentarium against PTCL and new drugs currently in development. The successful results in CD30-positive anaplastic large cell lymphomas suggest that a better characterization of these lymphomas could open new areas of efficient drug development.

Expert opinion: Advances in the field of molecular biology have started to unravel the anomalies associated with T-cell malignancies. Recent knowledge on potential epigenetic modifiers like IDH2, which is frequently mutated in angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, opens new areas of research and confirms that epigenetic drugs could represent an attractive area of clinical research. The recently developed immune checkpoints regulators might represent another area of potential interest.