Top 5 Most-Read ALL/AML Articles in 2024

While new treatments for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML) are emerging, mortality benefits are not the only outcome on patients’ minds. The top news for ALL/AML showed that adverse events that impact a patient’s quality of life were also of great interest.

Here is the most-read ALL/AML coverage of 2024, or you can read all of our coverage.

Fatigue was identified as a patient-reported outcome that could be used as a prognostic indicator to determine if a patient had a higher risk of death or another adverse outcome.

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5. Increased Fatigue Associated With Greater Risk of Mortality Among Patients With AML, ALL, MDS

There are associations between patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and clinical outcomes, and fatigue was identified as one PRO that could be used as a prognostic indicator to determine if a patient had a higher risk of death or another adverse outcome. These findings were presented a month earlier at the 2023 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition. The research analyzed patients with AML, ALL, and myelodysplastic syndromes and found that those with greater fatigue levels had significantly worse outcomes.

Read the full article.

4. In AML, CAR T-Cell Therapy Has Higher CR Rate After Transplant

For patients with AML, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy is an effective treatment following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), according to research published in April in Leukemia Research. Currently, there are no CAR T-cell therapies approved in the US to treat AML. This study reviewed 13 studies in which 57 patients with AML were treated with CAR T and found a complete remission rate of 48%, although there were variables associated with different rates.

Read the full article.

3. In Acute Leukemia, Chance of Response Is Patient’s Top Concern

Among patients who have relapsed or refractory disease, response to therapy is the most important factor when choosing a therapy, but quality of life was also of concern, according to research published in Patient Preference and Adherence in June. A total of 95 patients with acute leukemia responded to an online discrete choice survey. For 60% of respondents, they cared about a wide variety of attributes of treatment, but in the second group consisting of 40% of respondents, the only attributes that were statistically important were quality of life during treatment and the chance of response. Patients with ALL or acute promyelocytic leukemia were more likely to be part of this second group.

Read the full article.

2. In AML, Immunotherapy Shows Promise to Expand Treatment Toolbox

Research published in January suggested that combination therapies might be the best option for many patients with AML. The results were published in Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy. The standard therapies for AML are chemotherapy and allogeneic HSCT, but these patients still experience significant relapse rates. The researchers discussed several immune checkpoint inhibitors being investigated in AML, as well as CAR T-cell therapy and antibody-based therapies, such as bispecific antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates. The concluded that immunotherapies offer hope, although the disease still poses a challenge.

Read the full article.

1. FDA Approves Obe-Cel for R/R B-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

By far, the most-read article in 2024 was about a recent approval. In November, obecabtagene autoleucel (obe-cel; Aucatzyl) became the first FDA-approved CAR T-cell therapy for patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The therapy also did not require a Risk Evaluation Mitigation Strategy program. The FDA approved obe-cel based on the data from the FELIX trial, which found 63% of patients achieved overall complete remission with 51% of patients achieving a complete response at any time. Obe-cel does have a boxed warning for cytokine release syndrome and neurologic toxicities, which occurred in low levels, as well as secondary hematological malignancies.

Read about the FDA approval.