Leukemia

Obinutuzumab (GA101) achieved higher response rates than rituximab in the first head-to-head trial of the two biologic agents in patients with relapsed non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Andrew Evens, DO, MSc, deputy director for clinical and translational research and medical director of the Clinical Research Office at the UMass Memorial Health Care Cancer Center of Excellence, talks about his research on lymphoma during pregnancy.

CancerNetwork highlights four sessions--on anaplastic large cell lymphoma, lymphoma in pregnancy, follicular lymphoma, splenic marginal zone lymphoma--you won’t want to miss from this year’s ASH.

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved asparaginase Erwinia chrysanthemi for the treatment of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, who have developed hypersensitivity to E. coli derived asparaginase and pegaspargase chemotherapy.

A survey of more than 500 long-term survivors of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) has revealed that more than one-third experience persistent or worsening symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with nearly 4 of 10 cancer survivors stating they still experience symptoms of PTSD more than a decade after their cancer diagnosis.

Marginal zone lymphoma of mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma is an indolent B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma arising from the lymphoid tissue at extranodal sites.

After more than two decades of successful laboratory and clinical research, the "new" entity of mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma is reaching a noble maturity.

Normal B lymphocytes can follow either of two functionally distinct pathways of development. The first is a classical germinal center T-dependent pathway in which diversification and maturation generate a delayed but almost unlimited high-affinity response to antigens.

A case report is followed by a review of the diagnosis and treatment of other cutaneous paraneoplastic syndromes that are associated with hematologic malignancies.

A recent case report in the New England Journal of Medicine highlights the promising potentials of adoptive T-cell immunotherapy by redirecting them, through chimeric antigen receptors, as a novel and effective therapeutic modality for cancer.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced last week the approval of brentuximab vedotin, a CD30-directed antibody drug-conjugate, for the treatment of refractory Hodgkin lymphoma and systemic anaplastic large-cell lymphoma.

Equine ATG has been used for the treatment of severe aplastic anemia since the 1980s. Rabbit ATG is used in many parts of the world including South America, Japan, and European countries. The results of a randomized study of equine versus rabbit ATG showed that rabbit ATG was inferior to equine ATG.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have reported on the results of a trial in which a patient with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) experienced a complete remission after immunotherapy with tumor-reactive modified T cells.

Results of a Phase I study of the novel Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor veliparib (ABT-888) in solid tumors and lymphoma have just been published in Cancer Research (doi:10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-11-1227).

Researchers at the University of Chicago and colleagues have identified two variants on chromosome 6q21 that are associated with second malignant neoplasms (SMNs) in survivors of pediatric Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The SMNs are linked to radiation therapy used to treat the pediatric cancer.

Scientists at the University of British Columbia have found that histone-modifying genes are often mutated in non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL).

There has been dramatic progress in the management of acute promyelocytic leukemia during the past three decades. Important insights into the pathogenesis of the disease have come to light and effective treatment has been developed.

Our ability to stratify patients with CLL into high-risk and low-risk categories has advanced dramatically over the past two decades. However, which test or tests are most reliable remains to be seen.

The last decade has seen major changes in the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), with randomized trials now demonstrating improved survival with the use of chemoimmunotherapy.[1]

In their scholarly article, Dr. Park and Dr. Tallman review the important clinical trials for treating patients with APL reported over the last two decades and argue the case for further reduction and perhaps elimination of conventional cytotoxic chemotherapy in the frontline treatment of this disease.[1]

In this excellent review of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) treatment, the authors highlight opportunities offered by incorporating arsenic trioxide (ATO) into the therapeutic armamentarium.

To find a new cure for a disease, or at least to significantly prolong patient survival, requires a bit of insight and a lot of luck.

The current dogma considers cytomegalovirus (CMV) seropositivity being associated with inferior outcomes post hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT). However, there has been a notion of “virus-versus-leukemia” effect since the 1980s; and recently, there have been some interesting reports which may turn this to a hot topic.

A rarely noted aspect of the era of novel agents and explosive new knowledge in the clonal plasma cell diseases is how short the half-life of relevant information has become, and how this churning has challenged clinical thinking.

In this issue of ONCOLOGY, Dr. Robert Kyle and colleagues provide their clinical and epidemiological perspective on monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) and smoldering myeloma (SMM)-a perspective that is based on more than three decades of experience.