The National Cancer Institute (NCI) sees a real need for additional study of treatment options for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients with malignancies. The results of this trial make us confident that exclusion from autologous transplant studies on the basis of HIV serostatus is no longer justified,” said Richard Little, MD, Head of Hematologic, HIV, and Stem Cell Therapeutics at NCI, regarding the presentation by Alvarnas et al at the 2014 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition.

“This study is important. Even well controlled HIV infection increases the risk of lymphoma. In many centers, HIV infection is an exclusion criterion for the only potentially curative treatment we have for lymphoma. This study will change standard practice at centers that currently exclude patients with HIV infection [from transplant],” stated Brad S. Kahl, MD, ASH press conference moderator and Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison. ■

Disclosure: Drs. Little and Kahl reported no potential conflicts of interest.