Atlanta, GA—More than 25,000 attendees converged on Atlanta during the middle of a rare winter snowstorm to attend ASH 2017, which featured nearly 5000 scientific abstract presentations ranging from cutting-edge advances in gene therapy and personalized medicine to practice-changing discoveries in immunotherapies. Featured topics included the use of combination therapies [ Read More ]
CAR T-cell therapy has been striking in various hematologic malignancies, and, for the first time, the approach is being evaluated in multiple myeloma.At the meeting, James Kochenderfer, MD, of the Experimental Transplantation and Immunology Branch, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, presented preliminary results from a phase [ Read More ]
Elderly patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) are difficult to treat. A new study suggests that frontline treatment with the combination of the investigational antibody-drug conjugate inotuzuÂmab ozogamicin plus deintensified chemotherapy is a good option for older patients with this disease. In a phase 2 trial, the combination had impressive [ Read More ]
Monoclonal antibodies targeting programmed death-1 (PD-1) may be effective in multiple myeloma, according to early data on pembrolizumab presented at ASH.In heavily pretreated relapsed/refractory patients, pembrolizumab was combined with lenalidomide/dexamethasone (Rd) in a phase 1 study with 50 patients, where a response rate of 76% was observed (Abstract 505). Pembrolizumab [ Read More ]
In patients with B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (BCP-ALL), the addition of rituximab to chemotherapy significantly improved event-free survival in a large European study. “Adding rituximab to standard therapy should become a standard of care for these patients,” according to Sébastien Maury, MD, Hôpital Henri Mondor, Créteil, France. The study [ Read More ]
Dose-optimized nilotinib increased the rates of major molecular response (MMR) in patients with newly diagnosed chronic myeloid leukemia in chronic phase (CML-CP) in the ENESTxtnd study. According to final results from this study, the cumulative MMR rate was 78.8% by 12 months and 81.0% by 24 months in patients managed [ Read More ]
Midostaurin is the first FLT3 inhibitor to improve overall survival in FLT3-mutated acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Midostaurin plus standard chemotherapy improved survival compared with placebo plus chemotherapy as up-front treatment for high-risk patients with AML and FLT3 mutations. Patients and physicians have waited for new drugs for AML since the [ Read More ]
While the cost of treating newly diagnosed patients is greatly increased with the use of 3 drugs, doublets should not be considered adequate, and triplets should be the standard of care, according to results from a randomized trial.The use of triplets—including a proteasome inhibitor, immunomodulatory drug (IMiD), and steroid—has been [ Read More ]
Ibrutinib significantly reduced the risk of disease progression and death compared with standard treatment with chlorambucil in older treatment-naive patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Ibrutinib achieved a 91% reduction in risk of disease progression and an 84% reduction in the risk of death compared with chlorambucil. These results from [ Read More ]
Idelalisib combined with bendamustine/rituximab (BR) reduced the risk of disease progression and death versus BR alone in patients with relapsed/refractory (RR) chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), according to results from a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 3 late-breaking trial presented at the meeting.Lead investigator Andrew Zelenetz, MD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, [ Read More ]
