Hematologic Oncology

Martin S. Tallman, MD, Chief, Leukemia Service, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the treatment of hairy cell leukemia (HCL) with a BRAF inhibitor.

Brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) should not be given with bleomycin as a first-line therapy for patients with advanced-stage Hodgkin lymphoma

Researchers at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) have optimized special methods for modifying T cells to target specific cancer cells in patients with blood cancers.

Pierluigi Porcu, MD, from The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James), discusses early research in CTCL.

Eric Padron, MD, discusses the SRSF2 mutation in patients with MDS and CMML.

Mark Shapiro, MD, PhD, discusses bosutinib as treatment for patients with CML.

Timothy S. Pardee, MD, describes a phase I study of the first-in-class pyruvate dehydrogenase complex inhibitor CPI-613 in patients with advanced hematologic malignancies.

Michael A. Caligiuri, MD, CEO, The James Cancer Hospital Solove Research Institute, director, Comprehensive Cancer Center, Ohio State University, discusses the anti-KIR antibody IPH2101 in myeloma and leukemia.

Jasmine Zain, MD, from the Center for the Lymphoid Malignancies, Columbia University Medical Center, discusses two ongoing trials in T-cell lymphomas.

Jennifer E. Amengual, MD, assistant professor of medicine and developmental therapeutics, member, Center for Lymphoid Malignancies, Columbia University, discusses the potential of the combination of vorinostat and niacinamide as treatment for patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

María-Victoria Mateos, MD, PhD, associate professor, hematology, University Hospital of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain, discusses the design and results of a phase II trial that she presented at the 2013 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Meeting.

Combination treatment with idelalisib plus rituximab was associated with a >70% improvement in OS in patients with high-risk relapsed/refractory CLL.

Almost half of patients with relapsed/refractory AML had complete remissions when treated with quizartinib, which also had a more favorable safety profile as compared with higher doses.

Andre Goy, MD, MS, from the John Theurer Cancer Center, discusses the apparent effectiveness of CD19-targeted CAR-modified T cells as a treatment for patients with various types of lymphoma.

Brentuximab vedotin has demonstrated antitumor activity in the setting of relapsed or refractory DLBCL across a broad range of CD30 expression, including low or undetectable CD30 expression.

Several trials of ibrutinib, an oral BTK inhibitor, either alone or in combination with currently used therapies for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia were presented at the 55th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology.

Richard R. Furman, MD, from the New York Weill Cornell Medical Center, discusses the ability to avoid the administration of chemotherapy when using novel agents, such as idelalisib, to treat patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Adding ofatumumab to chlorambucil in patients with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia who are considered inappropriate for fludarabine improves clinical outcomes and is tolerable irrespective of patient age or fitness.

Ian W. Flinn, MD, PhD, from the Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discusses the preliminary efficacy of IPI-145 in patients with chronic lymphocyic leukemia (CLL).

Almost half of patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia attained objective responses when treated with an oral inhibitor of phosphoinositide-3-kinase-delta and -gamma.

ABT-199, an orally bioavailable selective inhibitor of the Bcl-2 protein as monotherapy, induced remissions in patients with relapsed/refractory CLL and SLL, including adverse-risk subsets of patients.

Patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and major comorbidities had significantly better outcomes when treated with the anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody obinutuzumab instead of rituximab.

Treatment with engineered donor T cells led to substantial tumor regression in patients with posttransplant relapsed B-cell malignancies, results of a small clinical study showed.

Valentin Goede, MD, from the University Hospital Cologne, discusses the efficacy findings from the stage 2 CLL11 study that examined obinutuzumab plus chlorambucil in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia with comorbidities.

Jennifer Brown, MD, PhD, from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses the development of the novel PI3K-delta inhibitor idelalisib as a treatment for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

John F. Seymour, MBBS, FRACP, PhD, discusses the efficacy of single-agent ABT-199 (GDC-0199), a novel Bcl-2 inhibitor, in high-risk relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia and small lymphocytic lymphoma.

To gain insight into the studies being presented at the ASH Annual Meeting, we interviewed Marcel R.M. van den Brink, MD, PhD, on abstracts being presented by faculty at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Marcel R.M. van den Brink, MD, PhD, Head, discusses a trial being presented at the 2013 ASH Annual Meeting, analyzing the addition of ibrutinib to R-CHOP in patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL).