Cutaneous Lymphoma Foundation
14
Cutaneous Lymphoma Foundation CEO, Susan Thornton
recently attended the Cutaneous Lymphoma Task Force for the
European Organization for Research & Treatment of Cancer’s
(EORTC) annual meeting held in Vienna, Austria in early
September. This meeting brings together physicians, researchers
and specialists in cutaneous lymphoma from across Europe and
beyond, including many from the United States. The focus of
this year’s meeting was to highlight important new developments
in the areas of clinical and basic sciences as well as pathogenesis,
diagnosis of and therapy for cutaneous lymphoma.
Over the course of the three-day meeting, 58 presentations were
discussed. Topics about the pathology and biology of cutaneous
lymphomas covered the histopathology of Sezary syndrome,
genomic fingerprint characteristics for mycosis fungoides,
methodologies for scoring and staging the disease, possibilities in
gene therapy for cutaneous lymphoma along with presentations
of current outcomes from clinical trials presently underway
around the world, including Dr. Youn Kim’s team at Stanford
University and Dr. Elise Olsen from Duke University.
The biggest “aha!” came from the depth of ongoing research
being performed in the area of cutaneous lymphoma by these
dedicated clinicians. From a patient perspective, it was
encouraging to learn about the various efforts around the world
dedicated to discovering how cutaneous lymphoma manifests
and what can be learned about the specific biomarkers of these
cells. This knowledge will allow therapies to be developed that
target specific variations of cutaneous lymphoma (mycosis
fungoides, Sezary syndrome, follicultropic, cutaneous B-cell,
LyP, etc). The research is painstaking and takes patience, but
it’s exciting to see the progress that is being made. Everything
learned in a research study gives us more information about the
disease, how it changes, morphs and how it can be targeted for
treatment.
New Therapeutic Approaches
There were also presentations about combining current
therapies in different ways to determine overall effectiveness
of a new approach. This is leading to new ways of putting
together different treatments to get the best response with the
least amount of side effects, hopefully in the shortest amount of
time. One of the struggles many of the presenters mentioned
was the difficulty in getting enough patients to participate in a
clinical trial. As you move forward with your treatments, keep
an open mind to the option of participating in a trial. These
are important steps in determining the best approach to new
therapies or a better way of delivering current treatments.
New App for Patient Scoring
An exciting presentation from the United Kingdom showcased
a new iPhone app developed for scoring patients with CTCL.
It is based on the severity weighted assessment tool (SWAT)
used to assess the body surface as affected by the disease to score
patch (T1), plaque (T2) or tumor stages (T3). This new app was
presented as a way of creating consistency in scoring methods
with a recommendation that future studies be undertaken,
potentially using the app, to help scoring consistency across
clinicians.
microRNA in Cutaneous Lymphomas
Another area of discussion and presentation was in the area of
microRNA expression in cutaneous lymphomas. Cutaneous
lymphomas are the most frequent primary skin lymphomas.
However, diagnosis of early disease has proven difficult due to
a clinical and histological resemblance to benign inflammatory
EORTC - Cutaneous Lymphoma Task Force Annual Meeting, Vienna
Pictured with Susan are EORTC meeting co-chairs and
presenters/facilitators Robert Knobler, MD (left) and
Franz Trautinger, MD (right).
microRNA description from Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia:
A microRNA (abbreviated miRNA) is a short ribonucleic
acid (RNA) molecule found in eukaryotic cells. A
microRNA molecule has very few nucleotides (an
average of 22) compared with other RNAs.
miRNAs are post-transcriptional regulators that bind to
complementary sequences on target messenger RNA
transcripts (mRNAs), usually resulting in translational
repression or target degradation and gene silencing.
The human genome may encode over 1000 miRNAs,
which may target about 60% of mammalian genes
and are abundant in many human cell types.
The first miRNAs were characterized in the early 1990s.
However, miRNAs were not recognized as a distinct
class of biological regulators with conserved functions
until the early 2000s. Since then, miRNA research
has revealed multiple roles in negative regulation
(transcript degradation and sequestering, translational
suppression) and possible involvement in positive
regulation (transcriptional and translational activation).
By affecting gene regulation, miRNAs are likely to be
involved in most biological processes.Different sets of
expressed miRNAs are found in different cell types and
tissues.
Aberrant expression of miRNAs has been implicated in
numerous disease states, and miRNA-based therapies
are under investigation.
