Hodgkin lymphoma: from discovery to clinical translation

Abstract

Classic Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) represents a common malignancy of young people and accounts for roughly 11% of all lymphoid cancers. It is an unusual cancer, as the neoplastic cells are in the minority (~1%) and the biopsies reveal a rich micro-environment of benign cells accounting for most of the tumour mass. As HL cell lines are few and are devoid of any microenvironment and animal models of HL do not exist, the analysis of clinical samples, including approaches to Hodgkin Reed Sternberg (HRS) cell enrichment, have been used to explore the fundamental biology and genetic changes that encompass critical oncogenic alterations in HRS cells and the contribution of these changes to both the composition and function of the immune microenvironment. A trilogy of studies will be presented designed to explore this biology; all constructed around the relevant clinical question of patients experiencing treatment success versus failure. Although we cure ~80% of advanced-stage HL patients with current chemotherapy, still 20% of patients will succumb to their HL. Understanding the biological correlates that distinguish these two clinical extremes was the focus of our work. Data from gene expression profiling of whole biopsies to studies of microdissected HRS cells will be presented.