American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting & Exposition (ASH)

Encouraging findings were reported from multiple studies of ibritumomab tiuxetan (Zevalin), a CD20-directed radiotherapeutic antibody, in diverse patient groups with follicular 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.

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).

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

The intensified regimen of BEACOPP plus standard therapy ABVD plus radiotherapy bested four cycles of ABVD alone, leading to a significant improvement in tumor control. Final results from the German Hodgkin Study Group trial saw a 7% improvement in terms of freedom from treatment failure between the standard and new treatment arms.

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.

CAL-101 and GA101 demonstrate active results in indolent B-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia while a secondary analysis of a pralatrexate (Folotyn) trial shows a benefit for peripheral T-cell lymphoma patients who fail second-line therapy.

The saying that “knowledge is power” holds especially true when it comes to a lymphoma diagnosis, and there are best practices for clinicians who want to fully educate their patients. Presentations at ASH 2010 offer data and advice on how to approach&#151and improve&#151education efforts among clinicians and patients.

NEW ORLEANS-More is better, at least when it comes to treatments for multiple myeloma. Separate studies from a Spanish group and an Italian group showed that up-front use of four drugs improves durable responses and progression-free survival in elderly patients. Both studies also showed that a kinder, gentler weekly schedule of bortezomib (Velcade) instead of the standard twice-weekly schedule maintains efficacy and reduces toxicity.

NEW ORLEANS-A new treatment for patients who are severely debilitated by myelofibrosis offers hope of a return to normal daily life. Preliminary studies with an oral drug INCB018424 that targets the Janus-activated kinase (JAK) 2 gene appears to markedly reduce the swelling of the spleen and sometimes the liver, which can, in turn, can change patients’ quality of life.

NEW ORLEANS-There was good news at ASH 2009 on promising treatments for indolent lymphoma and aggressive non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Also, a separate poster presentation showed that even just one cycle of post-remission therapy extended survival in elderly patients with acute myeloid leukemia.

NEW ORLEANS-The scientific program sessions are a unique offering at ASH, with an agenda that varies from the overall meeting. First, the speakers are invited to share their particular expertise with ASH attendees. Also, the abstracts are not peer-reviewed but are crafted specifically for the meeting.

An imatinib-based (Gleevec) regimen induced a similarly high rate of hematological complete response (CR) versus a more intensive imatinib-HyperCVAD regimen in younger adults with de novo Philadelphia-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). However, the rate of molecular response was somewhat lower with the imatinib-based regimen, according to preliminary results of the GRAAPH 2005 study.

Thalomide may not be the best partner for bortezomib (Velcade) in combination therapy for elderly multiple myeloma patients. Based on the results of a phase III clinical trial, bortezomib, prednisone, and thalidomide achieved equivalent outcomes when compared with a similar combination therapy using melphalan, but led to more serious adverse events, particularly thromboembolic complications.

Evidence from a large managed-care database suggests that sargramostim (Leukine) reduced the risk of infection-related hospitalization as well as associated costs compared with filgrastim (Neupogen) or pegfilgrastim (Neulasta) in patients with chemotherapy-induced neutropenia.

A simple, inexpensive, widely available serum lactate test had significant predictive value in identifying which patients with hematologic malignancies and febrile neutropenia are at risk for septic shock in a study presented at the ASH meeting this week.

Two of the largest trials to date on the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia indicate that the combination treatment of fludarabine, cyclophosphamide, and rituximab (Rituxan) should become the new standard of care for both untreated and previously treated patients.

Dexamethasone in the induction phase of chemotherapy led to a one-third reduction in the risk of relapse, compared with standard treatment, in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia, according to results of an international trial, which were presented this week at the American Society of Hematology meeting in San Francisco.

Age alone should not prohibit patients with acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndromes from receiving curative allogeneic stem cell transplantation, according to researchers from Houston’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Vorinostat (Zolinza) showed encouraging single-agent activity and was well tolerated over long durations of therapy in patients with two forms of indolent lymphoma, relapsed/refractory follicular and marginal zone lymphoma, according to results of a phase II study

A new technique to expand cord blood cells has demonstrated mixed results with myeloid engraftment in patients achieved in an average of 16 days. But results from the preliminary clinical trial indicate that the technique is logistically cumbersome and will most likely require modification before it can be a viable alternative for patients, according to Seattle-based investigators.

Dexamethasone and prednisone were equally effective as induction therapy for children with newly diagnosed acute lymphocytic leukemia in terms of five-year event-free survival, according to a second interim analysis of EORTC Trial 58951.