A phase 2 study of vorinostat for treatment of relapsed or refractory Hodgkin lymphoma: Southwest Oncology Group Study S0517

Abstract

We performed a phase II study of oral vorinostat (200 mg twice daily, days 1–14 of a 21-day cycle), a histone and protein deacetylase inhibitor, to examine efficacy and tolerability in patients with relapsed/refractory Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) with ≤ 5 prior therapies. The primary endpoint was the objective response rate (ORR), with secondary endpoints of progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), safety and tolerability. A two-stage design was used for patient accrual. Twenty-five eligible patients were accrued in the first stage. Median time on treatment was 3.8 months. The ORR was 4% (one partial response). Median PFS was 4.8 months. The drug was well tolerated. The second stage of accrual was not opened due to few objective responses. Oral vorinostat has limited single-agent activity in relapsed/refractory HL. There was one partial response, while seven other patients had stable disease for > 1 year, including two with stable disease for nearly 3 years, suggesting that further studies in combination with other active agents in this setting may be warranted.

Keywords::

• Lymphoma and Hodgkin disease
• pharmacotherapeutics
• signaling therapies

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the following Public Health Service Cooperative Agreement grant numbers awarded by the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services: CA32102, CA38926, CA46368, CA04919, CA67575, CA45808, CA45560, CA37981, CA58882, CA35119 (SWOG) and by grant numbers U01-CA62505 and N01-CM62209 (NCI Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program) and P30-CA-033572 (City of Hope).

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