Leukemia and Lymphoma

The theme of ACCC Immediate Past President Ali McBride, PharmD, MS, BPS, BCOP, for his 2019-2020 term was “Collaborate. Educate. Compensate: A Prescription for Sustainable Cancer Care Delivery.” Nowhere was that more evident than in the panel discussion he led on day 2 of this year’s annual conference.

Medicare patients' health care utilization, including hospitalizations and emergency department visits, decreased after CAR T-cell therapy, said Karl Kilgore, PhD, senior research analyst at Avalere Health.

While there are similarities to the Oncology Care Model, the new model has features “that could have a substantial impact on practices that choose to participate,” the authors write.

Though rare, patients with both autoimmune hemolytic anemia (AHIA) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma face stark odds of long-term survival. A new study lends insights into how to best diagnose and treat those patients.

Through a series of live-cell single-molecule imaging experiments, researchers at the University of York discovered how rogue communications between cells lead to leukemia, according to a recent study published in Science.

An economic model based on the ECHELON-2 trial demonstrated cost-effectiveness of brentuximab vedotin with chemotherapy in frontline treatment of CD30-expressing peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL).

New targeted therapies like ibrutinib, idelalisib, and venetoclax appear to be highly successful in the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), but investigators say it’s unclear how those therapies impact autoimmune complications of the cancer.

Ibrutinib quickly became the de fact standard of care to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia, but the high price presents a problem for the US healthcare system, said Adam Olszewski, MD, associate professor of medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

Toxicities like cytokine release syndrome, along with other factors, limit widespread use of CAR T-cell therapies, said Reona Sakemura, MD, PhD, postdoctoral researcher at the Mayo Clinic.

Results come at the decision point for practices: Will it be 1-sided or 2-sided risk?

As new therapies come to market for pediatric acute myeloid leukemia, there will be a lot of questions to answer regarding dosing and where these drugs are used in the patient journey, said Sarah Tasian, MD, attending physician in the Division of Oncology at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Interviews with researchers and opinion leaders that took place during the 61st American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition in Orlando, Florida, December 7-10, 2019.

Researchers describe a recent case report of a diagnosis of lgE monoclonal gammopathy which transformed into myeloma, then into lgE-producing plasma cell leukemia.

The abstract presented by Kwanza Price, MPH, of Jazz Pharmaceuticals, gathered data from August 1, 2017, and February 28, 2019, capturing the first 19 months of claims data after the biotech received FDA approval for its fixed-dose therapy for 2 types of poor-prognosis acute myeloid leukemia.

While ibrutinib is a major breakthrough in treating chronic lymphocytic leukemia, it is associated with financial burdens and medical concerns for the older patients being treated, said Adam Olszewski, MD, associate professor of medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

Results from clinical trials presented at the 2019 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition in Orlando, Florida.

The group of patients with high CD154-postive mast cells had lower overall 5-year survival rates than the low CD154-positive group.

Oklahoma is suing 3 major opioid manufacturers for their role in the opioid epidemic; first responders and other workers exposed to carcinogens during 9/11 found to have an elevated incidence of leukemia; cost of MS treatments determine patient financial decisions.

Financial barriers and perceived implicit biases were both barriers that families of children with acute leukemia raised regarding access to care issues that might have delayed diagnosis, said Lena Winestone, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco.

Sarah Tasian, MD, attending physician in the Division of Oncology at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, highlights the coming advances in pediatric acute myeloid leukemia (AML) that she is the most excited for.

A recent study looked at the impact of stereotyped B-cell receptor immunoglobulins in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

Since there are aspects of care in clinical trials that might not be mandated, research is being done to see whether there are socioeconomic disparities for things like supportive care for children with cancer, said Lena Winestone, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco.

The results suggested that fusion events contribute to the complexity of acute myeloid leukemia and typically result from chromosomal rearrangements.

Lena Winestone, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, explains how her research into disparities in pediatric acute myeloid leukemia (AML) may help identify the cause of those disparities and how best to intervene in order to improve outcomes for these patients.

Patient feedback is quickly becoming a vital component of the FDA’s regulatory decision-making process for drug applications.

A higher rate of adverse effects in patients with mantle cell lymphoma can create an economic burden for those who are commercially insured, the authors noted.

The introduction of novel agents has really revolutionized the care of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia to the point where chemotherapy is rarely used, said Lindsey Roeker, MD, clinical fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

One of the challenges with treating children with acute myeloid leukemia is that many of the novel drugs are not available in children. Current treatment with chemotherapy really requires balancing increasing doses with the short-term and long-term toxicities, said Sarah Tasian, MD, attending physician in the Division of Oncology at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Ibrutinib, an FDA approved treatment with generally high response rates, can be resisted by some patients.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells are lymphocytes genetically engineered to recognize and bind to specific proteins on cancer cells. Studies are currently underway for applications in other fields.