New cancer therapy at NY Methodist Hospital targets non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma

July 29, 2016 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

From left: Dr. Leila Tchelebi, radiation oncology resident physician; Dr. Hani Ashamalla, chair of radiation oncology; and Ioannis Parameritis, D.A.B.R., medical physicist, discuss the new non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma treatment in NYM’s Department of Radiation Oncology. The therapy is administered via injection. Photo courtesy of NY Methodist

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Patients battling non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma now have a new ally on their side, thanks to a treatment recently introduced at New York Methodist Hospital (NYM).

The treatment is a tiny but mighty radioisotope (radioactive particle) called yttrium-90. It is particularly deadly to certain types of low-grade (slowly progressing) or follicular non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In combination with a type of the immunoglobulin G (IgG1) antibody, yttrium-90 can hone in on cancer cells at the molecular level and then administer cancer-killing radiation to those cells.

“Every year, more than 15,000 Americans are diagnosed with follicular and/or low-grade non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma [a cancer that originates in the cells of the body’s immune system],” said Dr. Hani Ashamalla, chair of radiation oncology at NYM. “The first line of defense against this type of lymphoma is typically close monitoring and treatment with chemotherapy or anti-cancer drugs. However, if the patient’s cancer recurs after the initial treatment, this new therapy can be added to help prevent it from spreading, thereby giving the patient a much better chance of a cure than previous options.”

The chemical properties of yttrium-90 allow the radiation it emits to penetrate deeply into tumors and nearby cancer cells without affecting adjacent organs. This means that it does not result in many of the uncomfortable side effects sometimes associated with chemotherapy.