Summary
This study is looking at whether a very low dose of targeted radiotherapy (called involved-site radiation therapy, or ISRT) can help the body's own immune system fight advanced follicular lymphoma.
Usually, radiotherapy treats only the area it is aimed at. In this study, researchers are exploring whether treating just a few spots of lymphoma might also lead to shrinkage, or even disappearance, of cancer in other parts of the body that were not directly treated. This is known as an "abscopal effect".
Participants in this study will receive low-dose radiotherapy to some, but not all, of their lymphoma sites. The goal is to better understand:
- How often this wider effect happens
- How the immune system may be involved
Researchers will use regular scans and blood tests (and sometimes tissue samples) to study how the body responds.
Who is it for?
This study is open both to people with follicular lymphoma who have had recurrence of disease after previous treatment, and people who have slow growing or stable lymphoma that would be otherwise managed by close observation without any current active therapy. You must be aged 40 and over.
Study details
All participants will have a PET/CT scan, which is a common scan used to detect lymphoma. This involves a small amount of a radioactive tracer being injected into your blood stream and a scan that shows where lymphoma is in your body.
In addition to standard scans, this study will use two newer types of PET tracers that can give more information about your immune system:
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89Zr-IAB22M2C - helps show where certain immune cells (called CD8 T cells) are in your body. These cells can help kill cancer cells.
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89Zr-durvalumab - shows a protein called PD-L1, which can be found on some cancer cells and immune cells and is important in how the immune system responds to cancer.
After these tracers are injected, there will be a wait of 1-5 days before the scan, to allow the tracer to be taken up by the body.
By using these new PET tracers, researchers hope to increase their understanding of the effects of radiation on immunity in general and on the abscopal effect in particular.