Adcetris is a cancer medicine used to treat adults with certain lymphomas (cancers of lymphocytes, types of white blood cells) when the cancer cells have a protein called CD30 on their surface (CD30‑positive).

In Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Adcetris is used:

• together with doxorubicin, vinblastine and dacarbazine (other cancer medicines) in patients whose cancer is advanced (stage III or IV disease) and has not been treated before;
• when the cancer has come back or has not responded to an autologous stem cell transplant (a transplant of the patient's own blood-producing cells);
• if the cancer is likely to come back or get worse after an autologous stem cell transplant;
• when the cancer has come back or has not responded to at least two other therapies and when autologous stem cell transplant or multi-agent chemotherapy (a combination of cancer medicines) cannot be used.

In non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Adcetris is used for:

• systemic anaplastic large cell lymphoma (sALCL, a cancer of lymphocytes called T cells) when the cancer has never been treated before; Adcetris is used together with cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin and prednisone. It is also used when the cancer has come back or when other treatments have not worked;
• cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL), a lymphoma of T cells that initially affects the skin, in patients who have received at least one previous treatment.

Adcetris has been authorised in the EU since October 2012. It contains the active substance brentuximab vedotin and is available as a powder that is made into a solution for infusion (drip) given into a vein.