ASH Annual Meeting

Victor Chow, MD, senior hematology-oncology fellow, University of Washington, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, discusses a retrospective study assessing outcomes of patients with large B-cell lymphomas and progressive disease following CD19-Specific CAR T-cell therapy during the 2018 ASH Annual Meeting.

After a median of 19 months of follow-up, durable objective response rates were sustained with tisagenlecleucel in patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. These updated findings from the phase II JULIET study were presented at the 2018 ASH Annual Meeting. 

According to updated data from the phase II ELIANA study, CD19-targeted CAR T-cell therapy tisagenlecleucel as treatment of pediatric and young adult patients with relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia sustained rates of relapse-free survival and overall survival at 24 and 18 months. 

Progression-free survival was significantly improved with both ibrutinib as monotherapy and in combination with rituximab when compared to bendamustine plus rituximab as a treatment for older patients with newly diagnosed chronic lymphocytic leukemia. These data were presented at the 2018 ASH Annual Meeting.

Ian Flinn, MD, Director of the Blood Cancer Research Program, Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discusses the safety, efficacy, and MRD negativity of a combination of venetoclax (Venclexta) and obinutuzumab (Gazyva) in patients with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) during the 2017 ASH Annual Meeting.<br /> &nbsp;

The combination of brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) and nivolumab (Opdivo) demonstrated promising clinical activity in patients with&nbsp;relapsed/refractory Hodgkin lymphoma,&nbsp;according to results from a phase I/II trial presented at the 2017 ASH Annual Meeting.

Treatment with the novel PD-1 inhibitor cemiplimab induced responses in half of the patients with&nbsp;Hodgkin lymphoma in a phase I study of patients with B-lymphoid malignancies; among patients with&nbsp;B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma treated with the monotherapy, the overall response rate was 11.1%, according to a poster presentation at the 2017 ASH Annual Meeting.&nbsp;

Treatment with&nbsp;tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah) continues to excite the possibilities seen with chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy with impressive responses seen with the therapy in patients with&nbsp;relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. In the phase II JULIET trial, an overall response rate of 53.1%&nbsp;was observed, according to findings presented at the ASH Annual Meeting.&nbsp;

Adding rituximab (Rituxan) to ibrutinib (Imbruvica) in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) did not improve progression-free survival (PFS) or overall survival (OS) versus ibrutinib alone, despite there being a faster time to complete remission.

According to results of a phase Ib/II trial presented at the 2017 ASH Annual Meeting, the frontline triplet regimen of atezolizumab (Tecentriq), obinutuzumab (Gazyva), and bendamustine was associated with an overall response rate (ORR) of 85% (Modified Lugano criteria; independent review) in patients with follicular lymphoma.

Jesus Berdeja, MD, Director of Multiple Myeloma Research, Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discusses results of a study that explored bb2121, an anti-BCMA CAR T cell therapy, in heavily pretreated patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma during the 2017 ASH Annual Meeting.

Updated results from the TRANSCEND study demonstrated that&nbsp;liso-cel (lisocabtagene maraleucel), formally known as JCAR017, induced an 81% objective response rate and a 63% complete remission rate in patients with relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

In patients with&nbsp;relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), ibrutinib (Imbruvica) in combination with venetoclax (Venclexta) induced an objective response rate (ORR) of 100%, according to findings from the TAP CLARITY clinical trial.&nbsp;

The addition of brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) to doxorubicin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine (A+AVD) reduced the risk of progression and death by 23% in patients with advanced-stage Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) compared with standard&nbsp;ABVD (doxorubicin [Adriamycin], bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine) chemotherapy, according to results of the phase III ECHELON-1 clinical trial.&nbsp;

Treatment with the chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy axi-cel&nbsp;(axicabtagene ciloleucel; Yescarta) demonstrated improvement in long-term survival rates in patients with refractor, aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma,&nbsp;according to updated findings from the pivotal ZUMA-1 trial.

Mogamulizumab improved progression-free survival in previously treated patients with cutaneous T-cell lymphoma by 4.6 months compared with vorinostat (Zolinza),&nbsp;according to findings from the phase III MAVORIC study.

Incidence of venous thromboembolism (VTE) recurrence was reduced in patients with cancer with oral rivaroxaban (Xarelto) therapy compared with dalteparin (Fragmin), the current standard of care, according to results from the Select-D pilot trial presented during the 2017 ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition.

Phase Ib results presented at the 2017 ASH Annual Meeting demonstrated that zanubrutinib (BGB-3111), an investigational BTK inhibitor, had encouraging rates of clinical activity in patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, including an overall response rate of 78% among patients with marginal zone lymphoma.

Kerry Rogers, MD, Assistant Professor, Internal Medicine, Division of Hematology, The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses a phase II trial of early intervention with ibrutinib (Imbruvica) in patients with asymptomatic, high-risk chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) during the 2017 ASH Annual Meeting.<br /> &nbsp;

Matthew S. Davids, MD, Associate Director, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Center for Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, discusses a study that explored optimizing checkpoint blockade as a treatment for relapsed hematologic malignancies after allogenic hematopoietic cell transplantation during the 2017 ASH Annual Meeting.<br /> <br /> &nbsp;

For patients with mantle cell lymphoma, initial and maintenance treatment with the combination of lenalidomide (Revlimid) and rituximab (Rituxan) were found to be feasible, safe, and elicit clinical activity.

Ropeginterferon alfa-2b is noninferior to hydroxyurea in terms of complete hematologic response for the treatment of polycythemia vera, and has the advantage of being a safer and more tolerable therapy.

Alex Herrera, MD, assistant professor, City of Hope, discusses a study investigating the use of brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) and nivolumab (Opdivo) in the treatment of relapsed or treatment-resistant Hodgkin lymphoma during the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting.

Early data from a phase I/II study suggest that the combination of brentuximab vedotin and nivolumab may be an active and well-tolerated outpatient regimen in patients with relapsed/refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma after failure of standard frontline chemotherapy.

Treatment with the CD19-directed CAR T-cell therapy KTE-C19 showed a complete remission rate of 73% for patients with aggressive, chemorefractory primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma and transformed follicular lymphoma, according to findings from the multicenter phase II ZUMA-1 study.

Kathryn Kolibaba, MD, associate chair of hematology research program, US Oncology, discusses an ongoing phase 2 study of brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) with as frontline therapy in patients with high-intermediate/high-risk diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL).<br /> &nbsp;

Treatment with enasidenib (AG221) was active and was well tolerated in pretreated patients with IDH2-mutated myelodysplastic syndrome, including those who failed hypomethylating agents, according to findings from a phase I/II study.

The combination of lirilumab and azacytidine was well tolerated and showed early signals of activity in heavily pretreated patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), according to phase Ib/II findings presented at the 2016 ASH Annual Meeting.

Combining obinutuzumab (Gazyva) with chemotherapy in the first-line setting reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 34% versus rituximab (Rituxan) plus chemotherapy in patients with follicular lymphoma, according to findings from the phase III GALLIUM study.

Jeffrey Jones, MD, MPH, associate professor of Internal Medicine, Division of Hematology, Department of Internal Medicine, Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, discusses the benefits of venetoclax in chronic lymphocytic luekemia (CLL).