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EHA 2026 | Nivolumab-AVD & BrECADD in Hodgkin lymphoma: clinical considerations for these regimens
Stephen Ansell, MD, PhD, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, comments on the debate surrounding the choice between nivolumab-AVD and BrECADD as standard therapies in Hodgkin lymphoma. Dr Ansell also notes that while combining nivolumab and brentuximab vedotin without chemotherapy seems promising, the durability of responses has been disappointing, making this approach less favorable. This interview took place at the 31st Congress of the European Hematology Association (EHA) in Stockholm, Sweden.
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Transcript
I think that’s a very important and kind of critical question and I think we’re still learning. So I think what’s interesting is nivolumab-AVD chemotherapy is a standard and BrECADD is now a standard. So both of those I think are very effective therapies and so a real debate has developed in the field about which is your best choice. Both of them give excellent results. I would say that elderly patients seem to benefit a lot from nivolumab AVD...
I think that’s a very important and kind of critical question and I think we’re still learning. So I think what’s interesting is nivolumab-AVD chemotherapy is a standard and BrECADD is now a standard. So both of those I think are very effective therapies and so a real debate has developed in the field about which is your best choice. Both of them give excellent results. I would say that elderly patients seem to benefit a lot from nivolumab AVD. And certainly in the US, that is a standard for older patients. However, at this EHA meeting, there’s some updated data for BrECADD in older patients also showing that that’s very well tolerated. So I think the debate continues. In our practice, we would specifically consider nivolumab AVD particularly for older patients. Especially a frail patient, you can often just give nivolumab first, get the patient to have a degree of response. That makes them actually be more able to tolerate the AVD part of the chemotherapy and that allows us then to give a kind of more effective therapy with good results long term. I think the one thing that we had hoped but hasn’t turned out is that maybe you could just use new drugs, nivolumab and brentuximab vedotin just together and skip the chemotherapy entirely. The problem is unfortunately while the response rates are good, the durability has been disappointing. So I would say that’s probably not your best strategy.
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