Role of histone deacetylase inhibitors in the treatment of lymphomas and multiple myeloma.

Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACI) have allowed pharmacologic manipulation of deregulated genes in cancer cells and have shown single-agent activity against T cell lymphomas, cutaneous T cell lymphomas, mantle cell lymphomas, and Hodgkin disease. The bigger promise of these agents is in enhancing the activity of other targeted therapies. In addition, the effects of HDACI on the immune system and cytokines indicate that HDACI can be useful in the treatment of immune dysfunction underlying tumorigenesis, autoimmune disorders, and graft-versus-host disease. There is also an effort to determine whether class specificity of HDACI has a biologic significance.