News

The GLA is proud to announce the GLA Award 2023 “Lymphoma Clinical Research” in honor of Michael Pfreundschuh and the GLA Award 2023 “Lymphoma Biology” and invites young investigators to apply for this awards, which is endowed with 5.000 €.

To the call

Dear colleagues,

The GLA has set itself the goal of better supporting younger colleagues. One of the measures that met with broad approval in the survey this summer was the establishment of a mentoring program.

Therefore, we are pleased to hereby send you the call for applications for the first GLA mentoring program.

This program will provide guidance on careers, as well as preclinical and clinical projects.

It is envisaged that 10 mentees will be supported, who must not be older than 40 years.

After completion of the application phase, a first meeting is planned, probably in March/April 2023 in Göttingen. This meeting will take place on Fridays/Saturdays.

Please submit the following documents for application:

• Letter of motivation, in particular your specific wishes for the mentoring program.
• CV, including work history, publications, and other expertise
• Letter of support from your institution

Please send applications to office@german-lymphoma-alliance.de

Application deadline: January 15, 2023

We look forward to receiving your meaningful application.

Your GLA Department Mentoring Program Team:

Björn Chapuy, Gerald Illerhaus, Lena Illert, Raphael Koch, Georg Lenz, Viola Pöschel

Munich/Berlin, December 19, 2022 - Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) is an aggressive cancer that is often diagnosed at a later stage, leaving many patients with a relatively poor prognosis. Now, in an international study conducted by the German Lymphoma Alliance (GLA) as part of the European Mantle Cell Lymphoma Network, MCL patients who additionally took the recurrence-approved BTK inhibitor ibrutinib showed improved progression-free and numerically even overall survival compared with the current standard of care (high-dose immunochemotherapy followed by autologous stem cell transplantation). The results of this study were presented at this year's American Society of Hematology Congress in New Orleans as Abstract#1. 

The outcome of the third comparison, whether ibrutinib patients benefit from additional transplantation, is still pending, but already the present results demonstrate the superiority of ibrutinib combination over autologous stem cell transplantation (SCT). "Following the establishment of autologous stem cell transplantation 20 years ago, a new standard of care is now being established for younger MCL patients: Based on our results, chemotherapy plus ibrutinib (with or without autologous SCT) is the new standard of care for first-line treatment of these patients," explained Prof. Martin Dreyling, MD, President of the German Lymphoma Alliance and Senior Physician at the University Hospital of LMU Munich, during an online press conference today. "Already, both ibrutinib combination curves are superior to the old standard, autologous transplantation. I think clinicians will replace autologous transplantation with ibrutinib in the future because of the better tolerability, once approval is available."

The study enrolled 870 MCL patients (with an average age of 57 years) treated in 14 European countries. One-third of participants received standard treatment (high-dose cytarabine-containing immunochemotherapy followed by autologous transplantation and rituximab maintenance therapy as part of routine clinical practice), one-third received additional ibrutinib, and one-third received ibrutinib instead of stem cell transplantation. 

The primary endpoint was survival to treatment failure. Standard treatment was not superior to therapy with ibrutinib without stem cell transplantation, whereas the combination of SCT plus ibrutinib was superior to SCT alone. 

In the maintenance phase of treatment, patients who received stem cell transplant plus ibrutinib had a higher rate of adverse events. "Taking toxicity into account, this makes a combination of chemotherapy and ibrutinib the optimal therapy," Dreyling said. 

The study, which Dreyling presented recently at the ASH Congress in New Orleans, underscores the central role of academic clinical trials in improving treatment outcomes for patients with an otherwise poor prognosis. 

The abstract, "Efficacy and Safety of Ibrutinib Combined with Standard First-Line Treatment or As Substitute for Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation in Younger Patients with Mantle Cell Lymphoma: Results from the Randomized Triangle Trial By the European MCL Network," can be downloaded at: https://ash.confex.com/ash/2022/webprogram/Paper163018.html 

Late Breaking Abstract on the Value of Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation in Patients with Primary CNS Lymphoma.
Patients with primary central nervous system lymphoma are currently treated with high-dose methotrexate-based induction immunochemotherapy followed by consolidative high-dose chemotherapy and autologous stem cell transplantation (HDC-ASCT). The value of high-dose chemotherapy has never been tested in a randomized trial. Prof. Dr. med. Gerald Illerhaus, Medical Director at Klinikum Stuttgart and member of the advisory board of the German Lymphoma Alliance, presented the MATRix/IELSG43 study, which compares high-dose chemotherapy and stem cell transplantation with conventional chemotherapy in patients with primary CNS lymphomas up to 70 years of age, at the press conference. The largest randomized phase III trial to test high-dose therapy in patients with CNS lymphoma enrolled a total of 368 patients with an average age of 59 years in 56 centers and five countries (Germany, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland) between July 2014 and August 2019; 230 patients were eventually randomized to the two arms - conventional therapy or high-dose therapy. "The international study yielded a highly significant benefit in terms of disease-free and overall survival with high-dose chemotherapy compared with conventional chemotherapy. The risk of dying from CNS lymphoma was reduced by 54 percent with high-dose chemotherapy," Illerhaus said. This occurred without measurable negative effects on neurocognitive function and with an excellent benefit-risk ratio, he added. "HDC-ASCT is the standard consolidation therapy for fit patients," Illerhaus concluded. Interim analysis data were recently presented at ASH 2022.

The abstract, "Effects on Survival of Non-Myeloablative Chemoimmunotherapy Compared to High-Dose Chemotherapy Followed By Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation (HDC-ASCT) As Consolidation Therapy in Patients with Primary CNS Lymphoma - Results of an International Randomized Phase III Trial (MATRix/IELSG43)" can be downloaded at: https://ash.confex.com/ash/2022/webprogram/Paper171733.html 

At the end of October, Prof. Dr. Christian Buske was awarded the international Jan Gösta Waldenström Prize at the 11th International Workshop on Waldenström's Disease in Madrid for his lifetime achievements in improving the therapy of patients with Waldenström's disease.

Einsatz gegen Morbus Waldenström | Universitätsklinikum Ulm (uniklinik-ulm.de)

Dear colleagues, dear GLA members,

a successful Study Meeting 2022 is behind us. We are very pleased that about 200 participants were able to join us on site in Berlin. After a hybrid study meeting last year, we were again able to hold a pure presence meeting from November 10 to 12 and it has been shown that there is no substitute for face-to-face exchange.
Since recruitment is one of the most important issues for the GLA, this year we presented awards for the first time for the "Best Recruiters" in GLA studies in the categories of practices, community hospitals and university hospitals. 

Likewise, we are pleased to have been able to present our GLA awards "Lymphoma Clinical Research" in memory of Prof. Michael Pfreundschuh" and "Lymphoma Biology" to three young awardees again this year. 

In addition to the reports from the working groups, scientific symposia were also held. Once again, many thanks to all of you.

I look forward to welcoming you in Dortmund next year!

Your Martin Dreyling
for the GLA Board

SAVE-THE-DATE: GLA Study Meeting 2023, November 9-11, 2023, Dortmund, Germany

The GLA is proud to announce the GLA Award 2022 “Lymphoma Clinical Research” in honor of Michael Pfreundschuh and the GLA Award 2022 “Lymphoma Biology” and invites young investigators to apply for this awards, which is endowed with 5.000 €.

To the call

At this year's EHA Annual Meeting in Vienna, PD Dr. Lorenz Thurner, Homburg, was awarded the Czernecki Donnelly Prize 2022, which carries a prize money of € 5,000, for his manuscript on the clinical significance of autoantibodies in mantle cell lymphoma:

LRPAP1 autoantibodies in mantle cell lymphoma are associated with superior outcome

Lorenz Thurner,1 Natalie Fadle,1 Joerg Thomas Bittenbring,1 Evi Regitz,1 Rita Schuck,1 Onur Cetin,1 Ariane Stuhr,2 Torben Rixecker,1 Niels Murawski,1 Viola Poeschel,1 Dominic Kaddu-Mulindwa,1 Klaus-Dieter Preuss,1 Stephan Stilgenbauer,1 Olivier Hermine,2 Hanneke C. Kluin-Nelemans,3 Sylvia Hartmann,4 Martin Dreyling,5 Christiane Pott,6 Moritz Bewarder,1,_ and Eva Hoster5,7,_

blood® 10 JUNE 2021 | VOLUME 137, NUMBER 23, 3251-3258"

Congratulations!

More information on the newly formed working group "Diagnostik und Biologie" can be found here.

The GLA is proud to announce the GLA Award 2022 “Lymphoma Clinical Research” in honor of Michael Pfreundschuh and the GLA Award 2022 “Lymphoma Biology” and invites young investigators to apply for this awards, which is endowed with 5.000 €.

To the call

Please send your applications until April 15th 2022.

Information

The Follicular Lymphoma Foundation is launching a grant program focused on follicular lymphoma research. The Follicular Lymphoma Foundation (FLF) Curative Research to Eliminate Follicular Lymphoma (CURE FL) Awards intend to fund up to four research grants, providing each up to $500,000 over the course of two years to support pre-clinical or clinical research focused on the development of cellular immunotherapy or targeted therapy for FL. The FLF CURE FL Awards are managed and administered by the Milken Institute.

The Request for Proposals is published on the FLF's website. We are requesting Letters of Intent by February 4, 2022 via this grant application portal and full proposals will be due on April 15, 2022. If you or researchers at your institution have additional questions, please visit our website or contact our team at CUREFL@milkeninstitute.org. Thank you for your help in spreading the word.