Treatment for Relapsed or Refractory PTCL

What is the treatment for relapsed or refractory PTCL?

No consensus exists on the best therapeutic strategy for relapsed/refractory PTCL. Relapsed means that, although your tumor was initially sensitive to chemotherapy and there was initial tumor shrinkage, your cancer cells now resist chemotherapy and have grown back. Refractory means that your cancer cells no longer have any shrinkage from the chemotherapy that you received.   You may be refractory to the first treatment you ever received or you may be refractory after your cancer has relapsed. Both relapsed and refractory mean that your tumor cells have developed resistance to the chemotherapy you have been receiving and it is no longer effective. 

Since 2009, there have been two agents approved for people with PTCL by the United States Food and Drug Administration.  Pralatrexate (Folotyn) was approved in September 2009 for the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory PTCL.  Romidepsin (Istodax) was granted accelerated approval as a treatment for people with PTCL who have received at least one prior therapy in June 2011. 

For patients with relapsed or refractory PTCL, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines recommend clinical trials. If a clinical trial is not available, combination chemotherapy or single agent chemotherapy may be prescribed. In addition, some patients may receive a stem cell transplant (SCT).

Novel approaches to the treatment of PTCL in the relapsed or refractory setting are under investigation. For information about clinical trials, please contact the Lymphoma Research Foundation’s Helpline at (800) 500-9976 or helpline@lymphoma.org.