Prof George Canellos talks about the key research that has emerged from the 2010 ASH meeting in Florida. One trial of note compared the Stanford V treatment regimen with ABVD for patients with advanced Hodgkin’s lymphoma and revealed that Stanford V was not superior to ABVD. Prof Canellos explains why this lack of superiority and the adverse effects associated with Stanford V's obligate radiotherapy indicate that ABVD is a more attractive treatment option. A second trial which avoids the use of radiotherapy involved patients with primary mediastinal large B-cell lymphoma. This trial demonstrated that treating patients with an intensified chemotherapy regimen of R-CHOP (rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisolone) and ICE (ifosfamide, carboplatin and etoposide), whilst only irradiating patients when it was necessary was associated with an extremely high survival rate. Prof Canellos concludes by discussing two trials demonstrating the effectiveness of targeting CD30 protein cells with the antibody SGN-35 (brentuximab vedotin) and one looking at treating post-transplant relapsed or refractory Hodgkin lymphoma patients with the histone deacetylase inhibitor panobinostat (LBH-589).