Hematology

This week, the top managed care stories included the White House seeking a truce between CMS Administrator Seema Verma and HHS Secretary Alex Azar; Sanofi will shift its focus from diabetes to cancer drugs; results highlight real-world evidence of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies.

Although survival rates for multiple myeloma have improved as treatment options have increased, the disease remains incurable, and many patients stop current agents such as lenalidomide or bortezomib due to toxicity. Results of CANDOR involving a triple therapy were presented Tuesday at the 61st American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition in Orlando, Florida.

Treating venous thromboembolism (VTE) in patients can be tricky due to greater risks of major bleeding episodes and recurrent VTE.

The findings show the importance of preventing bone disease in multiple myeloma (MM), the authors said.

The FDA Monday granted accelerated approval to voxelotor (Oxbryta) for the treatment of sickle cell disease in adults and pediatric patients 12 years or older.

With their ongoing study, the authors also hope to show the physical effect of exercise on function, quality of life, pain, and bone disease.

Tumor inflammatory response is significantly associated with poor prognosis in patients with multiple myeloma.

After saying he would back a ban on flavored vapes, President Trump now says he wants to study the issue more; the FDA approved Novartis’ crizanlizumab (Adakveo) as both monotherapy and in combination for patients 16 years or older with sickle cell disease; the Federal Trade Commission will allow Bristol-Myers Squibb to purchase Celgene for $74 billion in cash and stocks.

There are substantial reductions in income over a lifetime for patients with sickle cell disease owing to early mortality, according to a new study that seeks to provide a better understanding of the condition from both the patient point of view as well as a societal point of view.

Researchers aim to eliminate leukemia stem cells safely.

Updated Carthadex trial results show improved responses at the 58-month mark and build on findings from other studies.

For their study, the authors wanted to expand on previous research results that suggest outcomes are improved among patients with multiple myeloma treated at high-volume facilities.

Monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance, a precancerous blood condition that rarely progresses to myeloma, can be predicted by a pattern of frequent hospital visits, and finding it earlier could present an opportunity to begin myeloma treatment earlier, thus improving outcomes.

There has been much speculation among the 175 practices still taking part in the OCM what will happen when the 5-year model expires in 2021. The RFI document states that the Oncology Care First model would start in January 2021, “when no new episodes would be initiating in OCM.”

Here are the top 5 articles for the month of October.

Quadruple therapy for newly diagnosed patients with multiple myeloma (MM) led to significantly longer progression-free survival (PFS), according to an abstract presented at the 17th International Myeloma Workshop 2019 in Boston, Massachusetts, last month.

Less than half of Medicare patients newly diagnosed with blood cancer are receiving treatment for their cancer shortly after diagnosis, which may be attributed to the high cost burden they face, according to a new report from Milliman commissioned by The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

A recent study identified the pretransplant characteristics contributing to delayed engraftment (DE) following autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation (AHCT).

The global blood shortage is unevenly distributed: Out of 195 countries examined in the study, 119 had unmet need totaling more than 102 million units, the equivalent of 1849 per 100,000 population worldwide.

The study found that, on average, it took nearly 2 months or longer for patients of color to receive immunomodulatory drugs such as lenalidomide and/or proteasome inhibitors such as bortezomib and carfilzomib. The use of these therapies has more than doubled survival of patients with multiple myeloma within the past decade.

Declines in global health status and quality of life, physical functioning, fatigue, and pain begin to appear 2 to 3 months before progression of the underlying malignant disease, multiple myeloma researchers said in a new study.

The findings have implications for survivorship care, as more patients are living longer due to the availability of immunotherapies.

Diagnosis of hypertension was based on guidelines updated by the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association in 2017.

A recent study said vacuolization can easily be determined and may be a useful biomarker to predict acute myeloid leukemia risk groups as well as early treatment response rates and survival.

The new indication is the seventh overall for the therapy, according to Janssen.

Researchers said Wednesday they created a second-generation chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy that prevented relapse of lymphoma and leukemia and led to 100% long-term survival in early laboratory studies.

Acute myeloid leukemia is the most common acute adult cancer diagnosed in the United States; 61,000 Americans are living with this disease and more than 10,000 will die of it this year.

Amgen recently announced early phase 3 CANDOR study data, showing the triple-drug combination of carfilzomib (Kyprolis), along with dexamethasone and daratumumab (Darzalex, sold by Janssen), met its primary end point of progression-free survival in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, with a 37% reduction in the risk of progression or death.

Real-world outcomes are important because the populations included in clinical trials rarely reflect the populations actually being treated in the clinic, said Ajai Chari, MD, associate professor of medicine, Hematology and Medical Oncology, Mount Sinai Hospital.

A new liquid biopsy test could detect microsatellite instability and tumor mutational burden, which can distinguish which patients are likely to respond to immune checkpoint inhibitors.