ASH recap: New regimens for blood cancers; gene therapy equitable for sickle cell disease
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This year’s ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition spotlighted practice-changing research in malignant and benign hematology.
Abstracts highlighted notable advances in follicular lymphoma, acute lymphoblastic leukemia and mantle cell lymphoma, among other malignancies.
Other studies examined whether gene therapy would be an equitable therapeutic strategy for sickle cell disease and identified factors that may predict thromboembolism risk among individuals with cancer and COVID-19.
Healio presents the following 12 updates from ASH that may be relevant to your practice.
1. Zanubrutinib (Brukinsa, BeiGene) significantly prolonged PFS compared with ibrutinib (Imbruvica; Pharmacyclics, Janssen) among patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia or small lymphocytic lymphoma, phase 3 results presented in the late-breaking abstract session showed. Read more.
2. Efgartigimod (argenx) conferred clinically significant improvement in platelet counts compared with placebo among adults with primary immune thrombocytopenia, according to phase 3 results presented during the plenary session. Read more.
3. The addition of blinatumomab (Blincyto, Amgen) to chemotherapy extended survival for adults with minimal residual disease-negative, B-lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Read more.
4. Skipping intensive remission-induction chemotherapy prior to allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant did not impact survival outcomes among patients with relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia. The results support watchful waiting and sequential conditioning prior to allogeneic HSCT when a stem cell donor is readily available, and challenge the practice of offering transplant only to patients in complete remission. Read more.
5. Patients with newly diagnosed mantle cell lymphoma who received ibrutinib with a standard-of-care regimen had higher failure-free survival rates than those who received standard-of-care treatment alone. Read more.
6. Adults undergoing stem cell transplant who received a nonrestrictive diet had similar rates of infection, feeding outcomes and acute graft-versus-host disease as those on a low-microbial protective diet. Read more.
7. Multilevel interventions are required to increase the rate at which Black individuals participate in hematology research studies, according to a qualitative analysis based on focus group discussions with patients and interviews with hematologists. Read more.
8. Patients with cancer and COVID-19 exhibited a 3% risk for thromboembolism within 30 days of their first positive test. Hemostatic biomarkers at baseline appeared predictive for thromboembolism, hospitalization and 90-day mortality. Watch video.
9. Gene therapy could represent an equitable therapeutic strategy for sickle cell disease in the United States. Read more.
10. Nearly three-quarters of patients who received talquetamab (Janssen) for relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma achieved an objective response to therapy. Read more.
11. Members of racial and ethnic minority groups had lower odds of receiving advanced therapies for pulmonary embolism and higher odds of in-hospital mortality compared with white individuals. Read more.
12. Odronextamab (REGN1979, Regeneron) showed promising efficacy among patients with grade 1 to grade 3a follicular lymphoma who received two or more prior lines of therapy. Researchers described the agent as a potentially curative treatment in this setting. Read more.
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