Ruijin, Roche team up for lymphoma research

Shanghai's Ruijin Hospital will team up with Roche Diagnostics China and Roche Pharmaceuticals China to carry out large scale multi-center research on a common type of lymphoma.

This will boost precise medicine and enhance treatment outcomes.

The research will focus on diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, or DLBCL, which has poorer prognosis than other types of lymphoma and is a greater burden of patients.

There are about 100,000 new lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system, which is part of the body's germ-fighting network, in China each year. It divides into Hodgkin's lymphoma and Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which accounts for 90 percent of total lymphoma. DLBCL accounts for 30 to 40 percent of Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and its occurrence is rising.

DLBCL is a curable disease. But its subtypes have different clinical and genetic features and different treatment responses. Some 40 percent of patients have relapse or have refractory condition. The five-year survival rate is only 25 percent and ten-year survival is 8.6 percent.

"How to improve treatment effects and help patients reduce the relapse risk and improve life quality is always the bottleneck and key of DLBCL research and practice," said Dr Zhao Weili, vice president of Ruijin Hospital and a leading scientist in the project.

"We desperately need innovative diagnostic and treatment measures and precise forecast plans on prognosis."

The project will include hundreds of patients with DLBCL in multiple medical centers in the nation to adopt precise genetic sequencing plans and innovative medication to provide patients with a more advanced and accurate model, in an effort to improve the rate of cure.

"Lymphoma has a high molecular specificity, which is an important factor for patients' clinical result," she said.

"Providing patients more targeted therapy can enhance treatment effects. We want to look for high-quality medical evidence through this research by more high-efficient and precise molecular subtyping. Also, a diagnosis-treatment united plan to better clinical practice to improve DLBCL capability and benefit the patients."