UBC Faculty of Medicine researchers have discovered a new way to better predict treatment outcomes in patients with relapsed and refractory, or treatment-resistant, classical Hodgkin lymphoma.
The recent study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, uncovers a new class of “spatial” biomarker that sheds light on the unique interactions between cancer cells and nearby tissue, known as the tumour microenvironment.
“Understanding the exact architecture of a tumour’s environment – the tumour cells, surrounding cells and how they interact – provides a better resolution and more complete data on cancer cells than we have had before,” said senior author Dr. Christian Steidl, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at UBC’s faculty of medicine and research director of the Centre for Lymphoid Cancer at BC Cancer. “This is an exciting discovery that will allow us to identify biomarkers to not only predict outcomes for patients with relapsed and refractory Hodgkin lymphoma, but hopefully for all people with cancer.”
