Application of topical gel helps complete remission for some patients with rare skin lymphoma
In the recent study, scientists found that, the application of topical gel may help to treat a rare skin lymphoma called Non-Hodgkin – cutaneous T cell lymphoma by activating immune cells thereby destroying malignant cells.
Overview: Lymphoma is a type of cancer that attacks the immune systems, particularly lymphocytes, a type of white blood cells which grows and multiplies uncontrollably. This is the most common blood cancer, journal of dermatology which affects many people around the world. There are two main types of lymphoma namely Hodgkin lymphoma and Non- Hodgkin lymphoma. The Human body has two types of lymphocytes that can develop into lymphomas and that are B-cell lymphocytes and T-cell lymphocytes. The most common form of T-cell lymphoma is Cutaneous T- cell lymphoma (CTCL).
CTCL: Cutaneous – cell lymphoma begins in the skin, which causes the T cell in the skin to grow out of control and cause lesions or tumors. Dry skin, red rash and severe itching are the most common symptoms seen while developing CTCL. People in the age of 50’s or 60’s are mostly affected by CTCL and mostly men are prone to this disease than the women. The majority of the patients with CTCL develop rashes and dry skin and 10% of the patients very rarely develop severe complications.
Recent research: CTCL patients usually undergo bone marrow transplantation only when they fail to respond to other treatments. Recently, researchers have found a topical drug called Resiquimod, which when applied in early stage CTCL patients have eliminated malignant cells within a few weeks.
Phase 1 clinical trial with Resiquimod: They enrolled 12 patients of early stage – CTCL for the study and all have previously undergone 6 months treatments. All the 12 patients were asked to apply Resiquimod gel of concentration 0.03 % or 0.06%. Their immune systems were stimulated for immune cell response via TLR7 and TLR8 pathways to develop skin lesions for 16 weeks. At the end of their 16th week study period, they found 75% of patients have significant improvement in their lesions after applying Resiquimod gel and 30 % of patients with skin lesions were completely cured.
In another study, 92% of patients saw a 50% reduction in their skin lesions where the Resiquimod were not applied directly. In the other two patients CTCL was completely eradicated. These patients have been living with this disease for the last 15 years. Scientists used High Throughput Sequencing (HTS) method to analyze the number of malignant cells before Resiquimod treatment and also after 8 weeks of treatment in 10 patients.
Scientists also say that, CTCL patients responded much better with this gel than the other treatments, like topical chemotherapy and strong topical steroids. Application of Resiquimod gel is an effective treatment for CTCL patients and it can be used with other therapies to treat more advanced stage of diseases. Since the research was carried out in smaller populations they are trying to study in a larger population in order to see the more effectiveness of the drug among patients. From the phase I clinical study, they suggest that the Resiquimod drug is safe to use and also it is easily absorbed by the skin and treats the skin lesions very effectively. This is the first topical treatment therapy to study the skin lesions in patients, which has not been treated for many days.
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By Richal Andy
