Lymphoma Biology and Imaging Group
This group's focus is on the biology and imaging of lymphoid neoplasms with the goal of improving diagnosis and tailoring management.
Our group investigates rare lymphoid leukaemias with a hope to improve their management. We also aim to develop artificial intelligence algorithms with an aim to assist radiologists and improve the quality and accuracy of lymphoma reporting.
Dr Sunil Iyengar
Associate Honorary Faculty:
Lymphoma Biology and Imaging
Sunil Iyengar was appointed as a Consultant Haematologist at the Royal Marsden in 2014 and holds an honorary lecturer position at the Institute of Cancer Research.
Researchers in this group
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Research overview
Dr Sunil Iyengar, Lymphoma Biology and Imaging Group
I have a keen interest in patient focused translational lymphoma research and have always aimed to develop my research questions from a clinical challenge or unmet need for patients. My current focus is on three key areas of research in lymphoid malignancy:
- ENABLE-NGS (NCT03344809): Unclassifiable indolent B-cell lymphoid leukaemias/lymphomas pose a challenge to clinicians. Over the last 5 years we have systematically collected tumour and germline samples on 120 patients with these cancers within a prospective observational/tissue-collection study (with matched clinical and immunophenotypic information. Next generation sequencing and methylation studies performed on these samples, in collaboration with Dr Chris Oakes at Ohio State University, will be correlated with clinical follow up to understand these diseases better with an aim to improving their management.
- ENABLE-AI: The number of novel therapies including kinase inhibitors and immunotherapeutic approaches licensed for management of lymphoma and CLL has increased steeply in the last decade. The Royal Marsden specialist integrated haematological malignancy diagnostic service (SIHMDS) receives over 15000 blood and bone marrow samples annually for specialist tests including immunophenotyping, next generation sequencing, cytogenetics and histopathology. The integration of clinical and imaging data with this multiparametric diagnostic data is crucial for improved diagnosis and prognostication. Matching these data with patient outcomes will provide valuable information for designing research studies and tailoring of treatment for lymphoid malignancies. We are currently validating a feature extraction tool to harness data for AI based multiparametric integration as well for building a research repository linked to clinical outcomes. We aim to extend this to other haematological malignancies and explore collaborations with other UK centres to test and validate our models on a larger scale.
- Rare leukaemia sample collections: Prof Daniel Catovsky. Dr Estella Matutes and Dr Claire Dearden established the Royal Marsden hospital as a centre of excellence for rare leukaemias. In collaboration with the Institute of cancer research, a systematic prospective collection of rare leukaemia samples was set up starting in the 1990s. We are in the process of cataloguing these historic samples on FreezerPro with matched clinical information to create a bank for research and collaborations in the future.
UK clinical practice guidelines for the management of patients with constitutional POT1 pathogenic variants. Tsoulaki O, Evans DG, Sinha K, Rajan N, Bakr F, Hatcher H, Napolitano A, Finn E, Iyengar S, Sohaib A, Sadler TJ, Forde C, Woodward ER, McVeigh TP, Tischkowitz M, Lalloo F, Hanson H.J Med Genet. 2025 Aug 20;62(9):559-565. doi: 10.1136/jmg-2025-110638.
The genomic and clinical consequences of replacing procarbazine with dacarbazine in escalated BEACOPP for Hodgkin lymphoma: a retrospective, observational study. Santarsieri A, Mitchell E, Pham MH, Sanghvi R, Jablonski J, Lee-Six H, Sturgess K, Brice P, Menne TF, Osborne W, Creasey T, Ardeshna KM, Baxter J, Behan S, Bhuller K, Booth S, Chavda ND, Collins GP, Culligan DJ, Cwynarski K, Davies A, Downing A, Dutton D, Furtado M, Gallop-Evans E, Hodson A, Hopkins D, Hsu H, Iyengar S, Jones SG, Karanth M, Linton KM, Lomas OC, Martinez-Calle N, Mathur A, McKay P, Nagumantry SK, Phillips EH, Phillips N, Rudge JF, Shah NK, Stafford G, Sternberg A, Trickey R, Uttenthal BJ, Wetherall N, Zhang XY, McMillan AK, Coleman N, Stratton MR, Laurenti E, Borchmann P, Borchmann S, Campbell PJ, Rahbari R, Follows GA.Lancet Oncol. 2025 Jan;26(1):98-109. doi: 10.1016/S1470-2045(24)00598-9. Epub 2024 Dec 12.
Incidental finding of leukaemia in circulating tumour DNA- the importance of a molecular tumour board. Mencel J, Rayarel N, Proszek P, Carter P, Feber A, Popat S, McVeigh TP, George A, Dunlop A, Hardy K, Chau I, Cunningham D, Kohoutova D, Lee R, Iyengar S, Starling N.BJC Rep. 2024 Feb 13;2(1):12. doi: 10.1038/s44276-023-00034-6.
Hairy cell leukemia variant and WHO classification correspondence Re: 5th edition WHO classification haematolymphoid tumors: lymphoid neoplasms. Grever M, Andritsos L, Anghelina M, Arons E, Banerji V, Barrientos J, Bhat SA, Blachly J, Broccoli A, Call T, Dearden C, Dietrich S, Else M, Epperla N, Fagarasanu A, Falini B, Forconi F, Gozzetti A, Hampel P, Hermel DJ, Iyengar S, Johnston JB, Juliusson G, Kreitman RJ, Lauria F, Lozanski G, Oakes CC, Parikh SA, Park J, Quest G, Rai K, Ravandi F, Robak T, Rogers KA, Saven A, Seymour JF, Tadmor T, Tallman MS, Tam CS, Tiacci E, Troussard X, Wörmann B, Zent CS, Zenz T, Zinzani PL.Leukemia. 2024 Jul;38(7):1642-1644. doi: 10.1038/s41375-024-02280-0. Epub 2024 Jun 8.
Correlation of T-cell receptor constant beta-chain 1 by flow cytometry with molecular T-cell receptor clonality for the investigation of T-cell lymphoproliferation. Dexter T, Taiwo T, Dearden C, Chan LY, Taussig D, El-Sharkawi D, Dunlop A, Iyengar S. Br J Haematol. 2024 Apr;204(4):1554-1556. doi: 10.1111/bjh.19299. Epub 2024 Feb 26.
Capture-based targeted sequencing using a T-cell control in myeloid malignancies and idiopathic cytopenias. Pietka G, De Lord C, Matthias G, Cheung B, Atwal S, Furtado M, Cullis J, Grey-Davies L, Narayanan S, McGregor A, Kilner M, Bosworth J, McMullin MF, Coats T, Parcharidou A, Cavenagh J, Byrne J, Iyengar S, Mohammed K, Cross N, Hubank M, Ribeiro S, Khorashad J, Wren D, O'Connor S, Taussig D.Br J Haematol. 2024 Apr;204(4):1325-1334. doi: 10.1111/bjh.19377. Epub 2024 Mar 11.
A retrospective study of MYC rearranged diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in the context of the new WHO and ICC classifications. El-Sharkawi D, Sud A, Prodger C, Khwaja J, Shotton R, Hanley B, Peacock V, Peng YY, Arasaretnam A, Sharma S, Aldridge F, Sharma B, Wotherspoon A, Cheung B, De Lord C, Johnston R, Kassam S, Pettengel R, Linton K, Greaves P, Cook L, Naresh KN, Cwynarski K, Eyre TA, Chau I, Cunningham D, Iyengar S. Blood Cancer J. 2023 Apr 18;13(1):54. doi: 10.1038/s41408-023-00827-5.
BTK and PLCG2 remain unmutated in one-third of patients with CLL relapsing on ibrutinib. Bonfiglio S, Sutton LA, Ljungström V, Capasso A, Pandzic T, Weström S, Foroughi-Asl H, Skaftason A, Gellerbring A, Lyander A, Gandini F, Gaidano G, Trentin L, Bonello L, Reda G, Bödör C, Stavroyianni N, Tam CS, Marasca R, Forconi F, Panayiotidis P, Ringshausen I, Jaksic O, Frustaci AM, Iyengar S, Coscia M, Mulligan SP, Ysebaert L, Strugov V, Pavlovsky C, Walewska R, Österborg A, Cortese D, Ranghetti P, Baliakas P, Stamatopoulos K, Scarfò L, Rosenquist R, Ghia P.Blood Adv. 2023 Jun 27;7(12):2794-2806. doi: 10.1182/bloodadvances.2022008821.
Consensus opinion from an international group of experts on measurable residual disease in hairy cell leukemia.Ravandi F, Kreitman RJ, Tiacci E, Andritsos L, Banerji V, Barrientos JC, Bhat SA, Blachly JS, Broccoli A, Call T, Chihara D, Dearden C, Demeter J, Dietrich S, Else M, Epperla N, Falini B, Forconi F, Gladstone DE, Gozzetti A, Iyengar S, Johnston JB, Jorgensen J, Juliusson G, Lauria F, Lozanski G, Parikh SA, Park JH, Polliack A, Quest G, Robak T, Rogers KA, Saven A, Seymour JF, Tadmor T, Tallman MS, Tam CS, Thompson PA, Troussard X, Zent CS, Zenz T, Zinzani PL, Wörmann B, Rai K, Grever M.Blood Cancer J. 2022 Dec 13;12(12):165. doi: 10.1038/s41408-022-00760-z.
Risk Factors for and Outcomes of Follicular Lymphoma Histological Transformation at First Progression in the GALLIUM Study.Casulo C, Herold M, Hiddemann W, Iyengar S, Marcus RE, Seymour JF, Launonen A, Knapp A, Nielsen TG, Mir F.Clin Lymphoma Myeloma Leuk. 2023 Jan;23(1):40-48. doi: 10.1016/j.clml.2022.09.003. Epub 2022 Oct 4.
Treatment Response Assessment Maps (TRAMs), a new tool for CNS lymphoma. Millard T, Chau I, Iyengar S, El-Sharkawi D, Cunningham D, Sharma B.EJHaem. 2022 Jan 11;3(1):247-248. doi: 10.1002/jha2.346. eCollection 2022 Feb.
TP53 Mutations Identified Using NGS Comprise the Overwhelming Majority of TP53 Disruptions in CLL: Results From a Multicentre Study. Catherwood MA, Wren D, Chiecchio L, Cavalieri D, Donaldson D, Lawless S, ElHassadi E, Hayat A, Cahill MR, O'Shea D, Sargent J, Stewart P, Maurya M, Quinn J, Murphy P, de Castro DG, Mills K, Cross NCP, Forconi F, Iyengar S, Schuh A, Thornton P.Front Oncol. 2022 Jun 28;12:909615. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2022.909615. eCollection 2022.
Can pre-transplant 18F-choline positron emission tomography predict relapse following autologous stem cell transplantation in primary central nervous system lymphoma? Millard T, Sammour F, Anthias C, Easdale S, Gonzalez-Arias C, Ethell M, Potter M, Iyengar S, El-Sharkawi D, Attygalle AD, Chau I, Cunningham D, Nicholson E, Sharma B.Bone Marrow Transplant. 2022 Jan;57(1):113-115. doi: 10.1038/s41409-021-01484-7. Epub 2021 Oct 5.