American Society of Hematology

Ofatumumab (Arzerra) demonstrated clinical benefit was superior to historic outcomes with salvage therapies in this setting, according to lead investigator William G. Wierda, MD, PhD. After about 26 months of median follow-up, progression-free survival and overall survival improved in fludarabine-refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia and in fludarabine-refractory CLL with bulky lymph nodes.

Phase II study results are encouraging because this patient population generally sees a median of five prior lines of therapy including transplants, explained Jeffrey M. Besterman, MD, PhD, executive vice president and chief scientific officer for MethylGene, the developer of mocetinostat (MGCD0103).

Nplate sustains platelet counts in patients with adult chronic immune (idiopathic) thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) while single-dose Zevalin offers survival advantage in non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Study leader Kirit M. Ardeshna, MD, tells Oncology NEWS International that he predicts this pretreatment approach will become the standard of care and will prove attractive to patients because chemotherapy can be deferred for even longer than it can now. But participants at an ASH 2010 plenary session questioned aspects of the trial design.

The likelihood of patients achieving complete cytogenetic response at any time was 1.5 times higher with dasatinib (Sprycel) than with imatinib (Gleevec), according to an investigator with the DASISION trial.

At a median follow-up of 36 months, multiple survival rates were nearly perfect at 99%. The leader of the Italian study called the low number of treatment failures reassuring news as to the durability of nilotinib response at three years post-therapy

The median reductions in Bcr-Abl transcripts at one year were greater with dasatinib (Sprycel) than with imatinib (Gleevec), according to the results of an intergroup phase II trial. A better molecular response should eventually correlate with better outcomes, making dasatinib a serious contender for upfront therapy in CML.

Experimental drugs from ImmunoGen, Seattle Genetics, and S*BIO advance therapeutic options in multiple myeloma, anaplastic large-cell lymphoma, and relapsed lymphoma.

The 24-month follow-up data from the ENESTnd trial showed that patients treated with nilotinib (Tasigna) had significantly better response rates and significantly lower rates of progression to accelerated phase or blast crisis when on treatment.

Patients in a major UK/US trial who received imatinib had improved overall survival, event-free survival, and relapse-free survival at three years of follow-up compared with patients who did not receive any imatinib.