AVAIL-T trial
Peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL) is an aggressive and difficult to treat type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Some people with PTCL don’t respond to standard treatment which is often chemotherapy, and people can see their disease return. Researchers are trialing a new treatment aiming to help these people.
The context
Peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL) is a rare and difficult to treat blood cancer. For this reason, doctors are working to develop better and more effective drugs. Early studies have shown that the drug avelumab can be used to treat other types of cancers, so researchers want to find out if this drug is effective at treating PTCL. Researchers have found that PTCL cells have increased levels of a protein called PD-L1 compared to healthy cells. This protein can protect the cancer cells by preventing the body’s immune system seeking out and destroying the cancerous cells. Doctors think that avelumab can reverse this by blocking PD-L1 and destroying PTCL cells.
The project
Researchers now want to understand how avelumab works to see how effective it is at treating PTCL. They are also trying to find out the ways in which avelumab acts in the body and if it is possible to create a better and more effective treatment for people with PTCL.
The aims
- Researchers want to find out if avelumab is effective at treating people with PTCL
- Find out what side-effects people taking avelumab experience
- Understand how avelumab works in the body