Oct 25th, 2021 - Stronger signals of cardiovascular and pulmonary risk emerged in the largest postmarketing study of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy to date. In the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS), the 2,657 patient reports for axicabtagene-ciloleucel (Yescarta) and tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah) were associated with significant overreporting of: Compared with tisagenlecleucel, axicabtagen...

Oct 21st, 2021 - In multiple myeloma patients unable to mount a sufficient antibody response following COVID-19 vaccination, roughly one-third also failed to mount T-cell responses, an important and durable source of protection, researchers determined. Among 26 myeloma patients who were seropositive after COVID vaccination, 25 (96%) had a CD4+ T-cell response versus just six of 17 seronegative patients (35%), r...

Oct 21st, 2021 - A patient with breast cancer discovers the silver lining in her diagnosis and treatment. (ASCO Connection) Innovent Biologics announced that the PD-1 inhibitor sintilimab plus bevacizumab biosimilar (Byvasda) significantly improved progression-free survival in advanced EGFR-positive non-small cell lung cancer that progressed on prior EGFR-inhibitor therapy. By means of a complete response lette...

Oct 20th, 2021 - Adding an isocitrate dehydrogenase 2 (IDH2) inhibitor to azacitidine significantly improved response rates for patients with newly diagnosed IDH2-mutant acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who were ineligible for intensive chemotherapy, a randomized phase Ib/II trial found. Of 68 patients who received enasidenib (Idhifa) plus azacitidine, the overall response rate (ORR) was 74% compared with 36% in th...

Oct 15th, 2021 - Adding daratumumab (Darzalex) to lenalidomide (Revlimid) and dexamethasone -- the DRd regimen -- boosted survival in newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patients ineligible for autologous stem cell transplant, an updated analysis of the MAIA trial showed. At a median follow-up of 56.2 months, treatment with DRd demonstrated a significant 32% reduction in the risk of death from any cause versus len...

Oct 15th, 2021 - After 18 years at his first and only employer, the Cleveland Clinic, in Ohio, Mikkael Sekeres, MD, decided it was time to move on. Dr Mikkael Sekeres The hematologist-oncologist said that his opportunities for career advancement had plateaued and, with the burden of additional clinic hours in recent years, his work as a researcher and mentor was pinched. So Sekeres set out on a mission to find ...

Oct 14th, 2021 - The FDA awarded 11 grants to support research in rare diseases, including cancers. A grieving mother shares her frustration and anguish over being denied access to her daughter's medical records after the 3-year-old died of a brain tumor. (Journal of Clinical Oncology) Merck announced FDA approval of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in combination with chemotherapy, with or without bevacizumab, for the...

Oct 11th, 2021 - The combination of the Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and rituximab was superior to rituximab alone across all clinical outcomes for patients with Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia, a rare B-cell lymphoma, according to the final analysis of the randomized phase III iNNOVATE study. Over a median follow-up of 50 months, median progression-free survival (PFS) was not ...

Oct 11th, 2021 - Low serum levels of two complement proteins are linked to worse pregnancy outcomes in women with antiphospholipid syndrome (APS), the results of a multicenter study appear to confirm. The study evaluated preconception complement levels in 260 pregnancies in 197 women who had APS or were "antiphospholipid antibodies [aPL] carriers" and found that low levels of C3 and C4 in the 6 months prior to ...

Oct 8th, 2021 - Maribavir, an oral antiviral to treat cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection in refractory transplant patients with or without genotypic resistance was recommended unanimously by the FDA's Antimicrobial Drugs Advisory Committee (AMDAC) on Thursday. The committee voted 17-0 that the benefits of maribavir outweigh the risk to treat CMV in both groups of patients. The committee members were united on the...

Oct 8th, 2021 - The burden of Plasmodium vivax malaria has been grossly underestimated, according to a report in PLOS Medicine. The study was conducted by J. Kevin Baird, PhD, Eijkman-Oxford Clinical Research Unit, Jakarta, Indonesia, and colleagues. There are five types of malaria infections. P falciparum receives the bulk of the attention, inasmuch as it causes 193.5 million cases each year. P falciparum cas...

Oct 7th, 2021 - Patients at community oncology centers had high expectations for genomic tumor testing in association with limited understanding of how the tests work. (JCO Precision Oncology) A doctor who spent a year hoping to make a difference in the lives of indigenous residents of northern Canada instead found just the opposite. (JAMA) Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's wife, Casey, has breast cancer. (CNN) The ...

Oct 6th, 2021 - Philippe Armand, MD, MPH Amid continuing excitement over the potential for PD-1 pathway immune checkpoint blockade strategies in anticancer therapies, research presented at the 2014 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting in San Francisco in December helped established a foundation for the use of anti- PD-1/PD-L1 agents in hematologic malignancies. Philippe Armand, MD, MPH, of Harv...

Oct 6th, 2021 - Joseph G. Jurcic, MD Professor, Medicine Columbia University Medical Center Director, Hematologic Malignancies Section Attending Physician, New York-Presbyterian Hospital Member, Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center Although standard induction therapy produces complete remissions in 50% to 70% of patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), long-term survival is seen in only ...

Oct 6th, 2021 - Paul V. O’Donnell, MD, PhD Seattle Cancer Care Alliance Researchers have developed two main alternative donor transplants for patients with hematologic malignancies who need a bone marrow transplant (BMT) but lack a human leukocyte antigen (HLA) match. One approach uses umbilical cord blood from an unrelated source and the other employs HLA-mismatched (haploidentical) marrow f...

Oct 6th, 2021 - Andrew L. Pecora, MD Editor-in-Chief Oncology & Biotech News Chief Innovations Officer, Professor, and Vice President of Cancer Services John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center Each year, hematologists and oncologists pick about a dozen preclinical and clinical trials to present in the plenary format, with the promise of illuminating the path ...

Oct 6th, 2021 - Claudio Anasetti, MD Patients receiving transplants from unrelated donors to treat various hematologic malignancies may benefit more from receiving adult stem cells harvested from bone marrow rather than peripheral-blood stem cells (the current standard). It seems bone marrow transplantation offers similar survival benefits while reducing the risk of developing graft-versus-host disease (GVHD)...

Oct 6th, 2021 - Katherine C. Rappazzo, MD Jennifer R. Green, MD Assistant Professor of Medicine, Director of the Vanderbilt Hemophilia/ Hemostasis Treatment Clinic, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee In the treatment of acute venous thromboembolism (VTE) associated with an underlying malignancy, direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) are now considered acceptable for some pat...

Oct 6th, 2021 - Aditya V. Shreenivas, MD, MSCR It is difficult to stay up-to-date with the changing treatment paradigm in hematology-oncology. This field is rapidly evolving, and the explosion of information is too much to handle sometimes. Fellows in training are generally expected to stay abreast of current treatment modalities and breakthrough research, but doing so is slowly becoming a challenge for all o...

Oct 6th, 2021 - Jennifer Woyach, MD, assistant professor of Internal Medicine, Division of Hematology, The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the efficacy findings from the phase III RESONATE trial, which compared ibrutinib versus ofatumumab in relapsed or refractory (R/R) chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma. Woyach says the study showed that the efficacy of ibrut...