End of Treatment Peripheral Blood TCR Evaluation for Minimal Residual Disease Evaluation in Peripheral T-Cell Lymphomas

Introduction: Peripheral T-cell lymphomas (PTCL) are a rare subset of non-Hodgkin lymphomas in which approximately 80% patients will have an overall response to CHOP based therapy but 5-year survival ranges between 20-40%. (Ellin et al Blood 2014) While response by PET/CTs have been helpful in risk stratifying patients (Mehta-Shah Blood Advances 2019), the high rate of relapse after complete response (CR) suggests that more sensitive determinants of minimal residual disease (MRD) could have prognostic and even therapeutic importance. T-cell receptor gene rearrangement sequencing (TCR) is standardly performed by next generation sequencing and is able to detect a known TCR clonotype at 10 -5. (Shah et al AMP 2017) Therefore, in a prospective multi-institutional study, we sought to evaluate the utility of TCR by next generation sequencing in quantifying MRD in PTCL. (NCT03297697). Here we report the results of the TCR evaluation at the end of CHOP-based therapy.