ASH 2020 Clinical Trial Data
A discussion on upcoming clinical trial data presentations featured at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) 2020 Annual Meeting.
Corey Cutler, MD, MPH, FRCPC: There were a couple of interesting trials that are being presented at ASH this year. GRAVITAS-119 is being presented. There is Abstract 356, and that study is itacitinib in prevention of acute GVHD [graft-vs-host disease]. It was an open-label trial. It was for patients undergoing transplant with 7 of 8 or 8 of 8 related or unrelated donors. They enrolled 65 patients. The problem with the early interpretation of this trial is that there was some ATG [anti-thymocyte globulin] use in this study, which is going to make it a little tricky, particularly in an open-label setting. For the patients who did not get ATG, the rate of acute GVHD at day 180 was 25%, I believe. Only 5 of 40 subjects who did not get ATG ended up with grade 3 or 4 GVHD. It’s promising. It’s early days for that trial, but they had a very promising 1-year survival of 75% in the group that didn’t get ATG. That bears watching in the future.
There was an interesting trial that will be presented just before that. It’s Abstract 355, which is looking at the combination of a JAK2 inhibitor called pacritinib, which is being tested in combination with sirolimus or sirolimus and tacrolimus. This is a smaller phase 1/2 trial, and I think we need to see the presentation before making any judgments. There are a fair bit of preclinical data in this abstract, but those are the 2 interesting prophylaxis trials that I came up with from this upcoming ASH [American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting] session. Do you have any comments on those 2 abstracts?
Usama Gergis, MD, MBA: One is being presented by my previous fellow Dr Hannah Choe. The second is from Dr Joseph Pidala from my previous institution [Moffitt Cancer Center]. We’re eagerly awaiting. It goes along with the prophylaxis of acute GVHD rather than trying to chase it afterward.
Transcript edited for clarity.
