Hodgkin Lymphoma Care With Dr. Evens: Fitness, Frailty as Factors in Elderly Patients

In this episode of “Blood Cancer Talks,” hosts Rajshekhar Chakraborty, MD; Edward Cliff, MD; and Ashwin Kishtagari, MD; spoke about the management of Hodgkin lymphoma in older patients with Andrew Evens, DO, MSc, FACP. Dr. Evens is Professor of Medicine at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, the Deputy Director for Clinical Services at Rutgers Cancer Institute, and Associate Vice Chancellor for Rutgers Health.

Dr. Evens described the clinical criteria he uses to distinguish fit from unfit and frail patients and how he approaches management in each group. He then discussed pharmacotherapy questions such as use of prephase steroids, when to use anthracyclines, and how to handle bleomycin toxicity.

Regarding recent clinical trials, Dr. Evens highlighted takeaways from the phase III ECHELON-1 and SWOG S1826 trials, as well as from his own trial work on the use of sequential brentuximab vedotin with doxorubicin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine.

He also included an overview of trials currently underway. “The great news is we live in a much better time where there are multiple ongoing phase II studies specifically in older Hodkin lymphoma patients,” Dr. Evens remarked.

This podcast originally appeared on Blood Cancer Talks.