Autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) remains the standard of care for patients with relapsed/refractory (RR) classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL) who respond to salvage chemotherapy. However, relapse after ASCT remains a frequent cause of treatment failure, with poor subsequent prognosis. Because cHL is uniquely vulnerable to programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) blockade, PD-1 blockade given as consolidation after ASCT could improve ASCT outcomes. We therefore conducted a multicohort phase 2 study of pembrolizumab in patients with RR cHL after ASCT, hypothesizing that it would improve the progression-free survival (PFS) at 18 months after ASCT (primary end point) from 60% to 80%. Pembrolizumab was administered at 200 mg IV every 3 weeks for up to 8 cycles, starting within 21 days of post-ASCT discharge. Thirty patients were treated on this study. The median age was 33 years, and 90% were high-risk by clinical criteria. Seventy-seven percent completed all 8 cycles. Toxicity was manageable, with 30% of patients experiencing at least 1 grade 3 or higher adverse event (AE), and 40% at least 1 grade 2 or higher immune-related AE. Two patients were lost to follow-up in complete remission at 12 months. The PFS at 18 months for the 28 evaluable patients was 82%, meeting the primary end point. The 18-month overall survival was 100%. In conclusion, pembrolizumab was successfully administered as post-ASCT consolidation in patients with RR cHL, and resulted in a promising PFS in a high-risk patient cohort, supporting the testing of this strategy in a randomized trial. This trial was registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as #NCT02362997.

T-cell/histiocyte-rich large B cell lymphoma (TCRLBCL) is an aggressive variant of diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) characterized by rare malignant B cells within a robust but ineffective immune cell infiltrate. The mechanistic basis of immune escape in TCRLBCL is poorly defined and not targeted therapeutically. We performed a genetic and quantitative spatial analysis of the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway in a multi-institutional cohort of TCRLBCLs and found that malignant B cells harbor PD-L1/PD-L2 copy gain or amplification in 64% of cases, which is associated with increased PD-L1 expression (p = 0.0111). By directed and unsupervised spatial analyses of multi-parametric cell phenotypic data within the tumor microenvironment, we found that TCRLBCL is characterized by tumor-immune 'neighborhoods' in which malignant B cells are surrounded by exceptionally high numbers of PD-L1-expressing TAMs and PD-1-positive T cells. Further, unbiased clustering of spatially-resolved immune signatures distinguished TCRLBCL from related subtypes of B-cell lymphoma, including classic Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL) and DLBCL-NOS. Finally, we observed clinical responses to PD-1 blockade in three of five patients with relapsed/refractory TCRLBCL who were enrolled in clinical trials for refractory hematologic malignancies, including two complete responses and one partial response. Taken together, these data implicate PD-1 signaling as an immune escape pathway in TCRLBCL, and also support the potential utility of spatially-resolved immune signatures to aid the diagnostic classification and immunotherapeutic prioritization of diverse tumor types.

Disease relapse remains the leading cause of failure after autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) for patients with relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (R/R DLBCL). We conducted a phase 2, multicenter, single-arm study of the anti–PD-1 monoclonal antibody pembrolizumab given after ASCT in patients with chemosensitive DLBCL, hypothesizing that it would improve the progression-free survival (PFS) at 18 months after ASCT (primary endpoint) from 60% to 80%. Pembrolizumab was administered at 200 mg IV every 3 weeks for up to 8 cycles, starting within 21 days of post-ASCT discharge. Twenty-nine patients were treated on this study; 62% completed all 8 cycles. Seventy-nine percent of patients experienced at least one grade 3 or higher adverse event, and 34% experienced at least one grade 2 or higher immune-related adverse event. Overall, 59% of patients were alive and progression free at 18 months, which did not meet the primary endpoint. The 18-month overall survival was 93%. In conclusion, pembrolizumab was successfully administered as post-ASCT consolidation in patients with R/R DLBCL, but the PFS did not meet the protocol-specific primary objective and therefore does not support a larger confirmatory study. This trial was registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as #NCT02362997.

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Improved biomarkers are needed to guide the optimal use of autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) for patients with relapsed/refractory (R/R) diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). We hypothesized that minimal residual disease (MRD) identified using immunoglobulin high-throughput sequencing in apheresis stem cell (ASC) samples or post-ASCT peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) and plasma samples could predict relapse. We studied 159 patients with R/R DLBCL who underwent ASCT, of whom 98 had an ASC sample and 60 had post-ASCT surveillance samples. After a median post-ASCT follow-up of 60 months, the 5-year progression-free survival (PFS) was 48%. MRD was detected in 23/98 (23%) ASC samples and was associated with very poor PFS (5-year PFS 13% vs 53%, p<0.001) and inferior overall survival (52% vs 68%, p=0.05). The sensitivity and specificity of ASC MRD positivity for progression or death were 36% and 93%, respectively. Positive ASC MRD remained a significant predictor of PFS in a multivariable analysis (hazard ratio [HR] 3.7, p<0.001). Post-ASCT surveillance MRD testing from plasma, but not PBMC samples, reliably identified patients with impending relapse. A positive plasma MRD result was associated with inferior PFS (HR 3.0, p=0.016) on a multivariable analysis. The median lead time from MRD detection to relapse was 62 days (range 0-518 days). In conclusion, detection of MRD in ASC samples is associated with a very high relapse risk, justifying alternative treatment strategies or trials of novel consolidation options in those patients. Furthermore, post-ASCT MRD monitoring may facilitate trials evaluating early initiation of treatment at molecular relapse. This trial is registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as NCT02362997.