ASH Annual Meeting

Findings from a subgroup analysis of the phase III AUGMENT trial of patients aged 70 or older with indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma showed a 34% reduction in the risk of disease progression or death compared with rituximab plus placebo, according data presented at the 2019 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition.<br /> &nbsp;

A high rate of rapid and durable complete responses were observed in patients with aggressive relapsed/refractory large B-cell lymphoma treated with lisocabtagene maraleucel.

In a phase I/II dose escalation study, there was a complete remission rate of 44% in patients with relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia receiving&nbsp;umbralisib, ublituximab, and venetoclax, according to findings presented at the 2019 ASH Annual Meeting.

Fixed-duration treatment with the combination of venetoclax plus obinutuzumab results in superior progression-free survival and high rates of undetectable minimal residual disease in patients with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia than chlorambucil plus obinutuzumab.

<br /> Diego Villa, MD, MPH, clinical associate professor, Division of Medical Oncology, The University of British Columbia, discusses a retrospective analysis evaluating bendamustine and rituximab as induction therapy in both transplant eligible and ineligible patients with mantle cell lymphoma.&nbsp;<br /> &nbsp;

Patients with relapsed/refractory follicular lymphoma showed durable responses with the combination of polatuzumab-vedotin, obinutuzumab, and lenalidomide, according to results presented at the 2019 ASH Annual Meeting.

Obinutuzumab combined with lenalidomide resulted in early and very high complete response rates in previously untreated patients with follicular lymphoma in a single-center phase II study. At a median follow-up of 25 months, the 2-year progression-free survival was 96%.

An&nbsp;open-label, single-arm, phase II study in patients with&nbsp;chronic lymphocytic leukemia demonstrated the frontline AVO triplet, comprised of&nbsp;acalabrutinib, venetoclax, and obinutuzumab, achieved&nbsp;undetectable minimal residual disease in the bone marrow in 48% of patients after only 8 monthly cycles of therapy,&nbsp;according to lead author Benjamin L. Lampson, MD, PhD, who presented the findings at the 2019 ASH Annual Meeting.

Updated follow-up analysis of&nbsp;the phase III E1912 study showed that ibrutinib/rituximab induced higher rates of&nbsp;progression-free survival (PFS) when compared against fludarabine, cyclophosphamide, and rituximab in&nbsp;patients &le;70 years with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), according to&nbsp;Tait D. Shanafelt, MD, who presented the findings at the 2019 ASH Annual Meeting.

Patients &lt;70 years old with&nbsp;chronic lymphocytic leukemia treated in the minimal residual disease (MRD)&ndash;cohort of the&nbsp;phase II CAPTIVATE trial had undetectable MRD rates of 75% and 72% in the peripheral blood and bone marrow, respectively, with the frontline&nbsp;combination of ibrutinib and venetoclax,&nbsp;according to findings presented at the 2019 ASH Annual Meeting.

Jacqueline C. Barrientos, MD, MS, discusses&nbsp;exciting novel combination strategies that are being presented at the 2019 ASH Annual meeting.

Patients with&nbsp;refractory large B-cell lymphoma who were treated with Axi-cel had a&nbsp;3-year overall survival rate of 47%, according to an updated analysis of the&nbsp;phase II ZUMA-1 trial.&nbsp;

Complete remissions were achieved in greater than 20% of patients&nbsp;with highly refractory non-Hodgkin lymphomas who had been&nbsp;previously been treated with chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy with&nbsp;Mosunetuzumab, a novel bispecific antibody,&nbsp;according to study results presented at the 2019 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting.

Patients with&nbsp;treatment-na&iuml;ve chronic lymphocytic leukemia experienced&nbsp;a statistically significant improvement in progression-free survival with acalabrutinib as a single agent or in combination with obinutuzumab when&nbsp;compared with obinutuzumab plus chlorambucil,&nbsp;according to results from the phase III ELEVATE-TN trial presented at the 2019 ASH Annual Meeting.

Encouraging signs of dose-dependent efficacy, as well as a promising safety profile,&nbsp;were observed in patients&nbsp;with heavily pretreated relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma who were treated with&nbsp;CC-93269, a human IgG1-based T-cell engager that binds to BCMA and CD3 epsilon in a 2+1 format.

Patients with a difficult-to-treat form of multiple myeloma who were treated with a novel, bispecific anti-BCMA/anti-CD38 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy experienced promising responses and a manageable safety profile, according to results of a study that were presented at the 61st Annual American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition.<br /> &nbsp;

A multi-antigen off-the-shelf chimeric antigen receptor natural killer cell therapy has been included in the ASH annual meeting spotlight due to exciting preclinical evidence. An investigational new drug application was approved&nbsp;in September 2019 for the therapy, labeled as FT596, developed by Fate Therapeutics, and human trials are scheduled to start in the first quater of 2020.

According to the phase III MAIA trial, triplet regimen&nbsp;daratumumab, lenalidomide, plus dexamethasone reduced risk of disease progression or death by 44%&nbsp;in newly diagnosed patients with multiple myeloma who were not candidates for high-dose chemotherapy and autologous stem-cell transplant, compared to patients who received&nbsp;lenalidomide plus dexamethasone.

An overall response rate of 26.2% was induced by selinexor, an oral XPO1 inhibitor,&nbsp;combination in heavily pretreated patients with penta-refractory multiple myeloma. According to the findings from part 2 of the pivotal STORM trial, selinexor is now the first investigational oral therapy to show activity in these patients.

An update on the pivotal phase III&nbsp;QuANTUM-R study presented at the 2018 ASH Annual Meeting demonstrated overall survival benefit across patient subgroups with&nbsp;quizartinib in patients with&nbsp;relapsed/refractory <em>FLT3</em>-ITD&ndash;mutated acute myeloid leukemia.&nbsp;

A significant reduction in the risk of&nbsp;disease progression or death was observed from treatment with the upfront combination of&nbsp;ibrutinib plus obinutuzumab in patients&nbsp;with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and small lymphocytic lymphoma compared with&nbsp;chlorambucil and obinutuzumab.&nbsp;

Durable responses were achieved with acalabrutinib therapy for patients with relapsed/refractory mantle cell lymphoma, with 40% still on treatment for more than 2 years, according to long-term follow-up findings presented at the 2018 ASH Annual Meeting.

Initial results from a phase I study showed an objective response rate of 83.3% had been achieved in&nbsp;heavily pretreated patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma who had been treated with the anti-BCMA CAR T-cell therapy bb21217.

Maria-Victoria Mateos, MD, PhD, discusses the key takeaways from the phase III ALCYONE trial looking at bortezomib, melphalan, and prednisone in combination with daratumumab in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma who are transplant ineligible.

According to a presentation of findings from the&nbsp;phase II CLARITY study at the 2018 ASH Annual Meeting, ibrutinib in combination with&nbsp;venetoclax demonstrated tolerability among patients with relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia. The combination also induced minimal residual disease negativity in the marrow in&nbsp;39% of these patients after 12 months.

Among older patients with acute myeloid leukemia who were ineligible for intensive chemotherapy, preliminary findings demonstrated that more than 70% achieved complete responses to venetoclax in combination with hypomethylating agents.

According to findings from the phase III TOURMALINE-MM3, a 39% improvement in progression-free survival was demonstrated with 2-year maintenance therapy with ixazomib compared with placebo for patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma who had previously achieved a partial response with&nbsp;an induction therapy of a proteasome inhibitor and/or an immunomodulatory agent&nbsp;following autologous stem cell transplant.

Peter M. Voorhees, MD, investigator, department of hematologic oncology &amp; blood disorders, Levine Cancer Institute/Atrium Health, discusses efficacy and updated safety findings of a safety run-in cohort from the phase II Griffin trial, a randomized study of daratumumab, bortezomib, lenalidomide, and dexamethasone (Dara-Vrd) versus Vrd in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma eligible for high-dose therapy and autologous stem cell transplantation, during the 2018 ASH Annual Meeting.

It may be possible for hematologists to determine subtypes of acute myeloid leukemia based on genetic analsysis of blood samples in 7 days or less. According to Amy Burd, PhD, this process could play an important role in diagnosing and treating patients.

Pembrolizumab in combination with&nbsp;umbralisib and ublituximab induced responses in 90% of patients&nbsp;with&nbsp;relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia, according to data from a phase I/II study presented at the&nbsp;2018 ASH Annual Meeting. Additionally, a&nbsp;50% response rate was also demonstrated in patients with&nbsp;Richter&rsquo;s transformation.