Jun 27th, 2022 - Lisocabtagene maraleucel, also known as liso-cel (Breyanzi), has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the second-line treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma (r/r LBCL). This expanded indication is based on findings from the pivotal phase 3 TRANSFORM study, which showed significant and clinically meaningful improvements with CD19-directed c...

Jun 27th, 2022 - In mid-April, news outlets began reporting a possible cancer cluster linked to a high school in New Jersey. More than 100 former students and staff had been diagnosed with brain tumors over a 30-year period, leaving some local residents calling for an investigation. Just weeks later, another cancer cluster warning hit the news. A former Philadelphia Phillies baseball pitcher had died of brain c...

Jun 23rd, 2022 - The study was published on researchsquare.com as a preprint and has not yet been peer reviewed. Key Takeaway Regarding consolidation therapy for younger patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), there was no survival benefit from taking high-dose vs intermediate-dose cytarabine. Why This Matters Numerous trials comparing high and intermediate doses for consolidation have not shown an advantag...

Jun 23rd, 2022 - Sending a text with a brief motivational intervention (MI) to parents of childhood cancer survivors substantially increased their child's physical activity level compared with control persons and also reduced treatment-related late effects. The findings come from a randomized trial of 161 children (median age, 12.4 years) who had recovered after leukemia, lymphoma, or brain tumors. "Physical ac...

Jun 23rd, 2022 - Whether hemophilia A patients should stick with effective nonfactor therapy or join a clinical trial for a potential cure with gene therapy – this question was debated at he annual meeting of the European Hematology Association. Ultimately, results of a very informal polling of the online audience suggested a strong leaning toward the known benefits of nonfactor therapy, as opposed to as-yet un...

Jun 21st, 2022 - This transcript has been edited for clarity. Peter Higgins, MD, PhD: I'm Dr Peter Higgins, professor of gastroenterology and director of the IBD (inflammatory bowel disease) program at the University of Michigan and chair-elect of the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation National Scientific Advisory Committee. Welcome to Medscape's InDiscussion series on Crohn's disease. Today we'll be discussing the e...

Jun 17th, 2022 - Cancer continues to exact a high and disproportionate toll on racial and ethnic minorities and other medically underserved populations in the United States, despite some progress in reducing disparities, according to the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Cancer Disparities Progress Report 2022. "We are making progress against disparities across the cancer continuum," Electra Paske...

Jun 17th, 2022 - UPDATED June 21, 2022 // Editor's note: This article has been updated with comments. For patients with follicular lymphoma, adding zanubrutinib to obinutuzumab more than doubled progression-free survival (PFS) compared with use of obinutuzumab alone, new phase 2 research shows. Overall, the combination therapy was associated with a 49% lower risk of progression or death compared with obinutuzum...

Jun 16th, 2022 - All 30 patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma who received a new CAR T-cell therapy, ARI0002h, responded to the investigational agent, with almost two thirds achieving complete remission at 16 months, new data show. Most patients did not experience limiting toxicities after a single dose, and some showed additional improvements following a second infusion. Dr Carlos Fernandez De Lar...

Jun 15th, 2022 - The investigational drug momelotinib has shown benefits in myelofibrosis in a new phase 3 trial, which could now lead to a Food and Drug Administration approval. This drug had previously shown mixed results in a phase 3 trial funded by Gilead, which stopped development of the product; it was acquired by Sierra Oncology, which conducted the latest positive phase 3 trial and now plans to use it t...

Jun 15th, 2022 - Use of the targeted therapy combination of venetoclax plus obinutuzumab for fit patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) significantly improved progression-free survival (PFS) at 3 years compared with standard chemoimmunotherapy, new phase 3 data show. Adding the BTK inhibitor ibrutinib to the two-drug combination pushed the 3-year PFS even higher, but the risk of severe adverse events ...

Jun 14th, 2022 - A single treatment of an investigational CRISPR/Cas9-based cell therapy could provide durable disease control for nearly all patients with transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia and sickle cell disease. After one infusion of exagamglogene autotemcel (exa-cell), 95% of patients with beta-thalassemia no longer required red blood cell transfusions and no patients with sickle cell disease experienc...

Jun 13th, 2022 - The potent oral FLT3 inhibitor quizartinib more than doubled overall survival among patients newly diagnosed with FLT3-ITD-positive acute myeloid leukemia (AML) compared with standard chemotherapy, new phase 3 data show. Among adults who received quizartinib along with standard induction chemotherapy and as a single agent for up to 3 years, the median overall survival was 31.9 months, vs 15.1 m...

Jun 13th, 2022 - This transcript has been edited for clarity. Javed Butler, MD, MPH, MBA: Greetings. I am Dr Javed Butler. I serve as the president of the Baylor Scott & White Research Institute in Dallas, Texas, and also as professor of medicine at the University of Mississippi in Jackson, Mississippi. Along with me to discuss advances in management of patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction...

Jun 12th, 2022 - Older, fit patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) pretreated with a 10-day regimen of decitabine (Dacogen) prior to allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation had similar overall survival compared with those receiving conventional intensive chemotherapy, according to results from a phase 3 study. Notably, those who received decitabine experienced significantly fewer severe adverse e...

Jun 10th, 2022 - Patients with advanced classical Hodgkin lymphoma treated with first line brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) plus chemotherapy showed substantial improvements in overall survival compared with those receiving standard chemotherapy, new research shows. Over a follow-up of 6 years, patients on brentuximab vedotin plus doxorubicin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine (A+AVD) had a 41% lower risk of death vs ...

Jun 9th, 2022 - New research shows a strong bidirectional relationship between celiac disease and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that may hold clues for patient diagnoses and care. After the first year postdiagnosis, researchers found that patients with celiac disease had an almost 4-fold increased risk of IBD, and patients with IBD had more than a 5-fold increased risk of celiac disease. “The risk of IBD in...

Jun 7th, 2022 - This transcript has been edited for clarity. Welcome to Impact Factor, your weekly dose of commentary on a new medical study. I'm Dr F. Perry Wilson of the Yale School of Medicine. There is an epidemic in this country that has been raging far longer than COVID-19, claiming around 300,000 lives a year in the United States. That epidemic? Obesity. Obesity is a major contributor to cardiovascular ...

Jun 7th, 2022 - The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved adding adult patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) to the list of indications for the rituximab biosimilar Riabni (rituximab-arrx) on the basis of results of a randomized, double-blind, comparative clinical study with the CD20-directed cytolytic antibody reference product, Rituxan, the biosimilar's manufacturer, Amgen, announced June 6. T...

Jun 6th, 2022 - A weekly subcutaneous dose of teclistamab resulted in high response rates among adults with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, based on data from 165 patients in the MajesTEC-1 study presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. "We have limited treatment options for triple-class exposed and refractory multiple myeloma patients, especially for use in the co...