Immunomedics Announces Antibody-Directed Radiation Therapy Appears to Improve Response to Standard-of-Care for Aggressive Lymphoma

Immunomedics, Inc. IMMU today reported that smaller doses of epratuzumab labeled with yttrium-90 given repeatedly to elderly patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma appears to improve their response to the combination of rituximab and CHOP chemotherapy, the standard of care for this disease. DLBCL is an aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and is the most common type, with approximately 20,000 new patients diagnosed each year in the United States. Although the standard therapy for DLBCL is R-CHOP, elderly patients who fail R-CHOP have a poor outcome, with a median survival after progression of only 0.7 months.