Hematologic Oncology

The first set of results from a phase III clinical trial found that obinutuzumab plus chlorambucil chemotherapy significantly improved PFS in patients with CLL.

Michelle A. Fanale, MD, Associate Professor, Division of Cancer Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the role of brentuximab vedotin as frontline treatment of systemic anaplastic large cell lymphoma.

Research from the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center suggests that chlorambucil may be better than fludarabine in treating older patients with CLL, and that rituximab is beneficial regardless of age.

John C. Byrd, MD, director of the division of hematology at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the role of Bruton's Tyrosine Kinase (BTK) in chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Harry Erba, MD, PhD, discusses the results of a phase II study analyzing azacitidine and gemtuzumab ozogamicin as induction and post-remission therapy in patients of age 60 and older with previously untreated non-M3 AML.

Sundar Jagannath, MD, Director, Multiple Myeloma Program, The Tisch Cancer Institute at The Mount Sinai Medical Center, details the advances in life expectancy for patients with multiple myeloma.

Tal Zaks, MD, PhD, Sanofi Oncology, details a phase II randomized study of the JAK2 inhibitor SAR302503 in patients with intermediate-2 or high-risk primary myelofibrosis (MF), post-polycythemia vera MF, or post-essential thrombocythemia MF.

Richard R. Furman, MD, from the Weill Cornell Medical Center, discusses the safety profile of the oral BTK inhibitor ibrutinib in both relapsed/refractory and treatment naive patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Philip L. McCarthy, MD, Director, Blood & Marrow Transplant Program, Department of Medicine, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, explains the factors that determine patient tolerability to allogeneic bone marrow transplant.

Smita Bhatia, MD, MPH, Population Sciences, City of Hope, Duarte, California, explains a clinical trial analyzing genetic susceptibility to anthracycline-related congestive heart failure in survivors of hematopoietic cell transplantation.

Brian J. Druker, MD, one of the pioneering researchers who discovered imatinib, has maintained his focus on finding new and better treatments for CML and other leukemias.

Michelle A. Fanale, MD, from the MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses a phase I trial that examined the frontline administration of brentuximab vedotin for patients with subtypes of lymphoma.

Brian G. M. Durie, MD, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Senior Advisor, Hematologic Malignancies, National Program Director, Multiple Myeloma and Related Disorders for Aptium Oncology, discusses novel therapies for multiple myeloma.

Andrew D. Zelenetz, MD, PhD, from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, explains the impact that rituximab has made in the treatment of patients with non-Hodgkin and B-cell lymphomas.

The FDA approved 11 new hematology-oncology drugs in 2012.

Francisco Cervantes, MD, PhD, Hospital Clinic, IDIBAPS, Barcelona, Spain, discusses the initial and long-term findings of the COMFORT-II trial of ruxolitib for the treatment of myelofibrosis.

Recent advances in the characterization of the molecular genetic defects underlying AML, as well as in novel formulations of therapies, are offering hope for improved outcomes.

We have come a long way from the microscope of Galileo, but questions remain in actual practice about how close we need to get to help our patients.

Timothy P. Hughes, MD, MBBS, explains the two-year follow-up results of the ENESTcmr trial analyzing the switch to nilotinib after at least 2 years on imatinib in patients with chronic phase chronic myeloid leukemia.

Mark J. Levis, MD, PhD, Department of Oncology, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University, discusses the design and results of a phase II trial of quizartinib in patients with FLT3-ITD positive or negative relapsed/refractory AML.

For the past six years, researchers have been working to develop a treatment for patients with CML who have become resistant to the groundbreaking drug imatinib and to the TKIs dasatinib and nilotinib that were developed subsequently.

Patients receiving transplants from unrelated donors to treat various hematologic malignancies may benefit more from receiving adult stem cells harvested from bone marrow rather than peripheral-blood stem cells (the current standard).

The introduction of tyrosine kinase inhibitors for the treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia has dramatically changed the course of the disease.

Meir Wetzler, MD, explains the CALGB 10001 study analyzing autologous and allogeneic stem cell transplantation for Philadelphia chromosome-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Giancarlo Agnelli, MD, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy, discusses the results of a study comparing the efficacy and safety of two doses of apixaban, an oral factor Xa inhibitor, with placebo for the treatment of venous thromboembolism.

Sung W. Choi, MD, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan, discusses the results of a phase I/II trial examining the use of the histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor vorinostat in graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) prevention.

Acting 3 months ahead of schedule, the FDA approved ponatinib for the treatment of patients with all phases of CML and Ph+ALL that is resistant or intolerant to prior TKIs.

Jorge E. Cortes, MD, from the MD Anderson Cancer Center, describes results from a 12 month follow up of the phase II PACE study that examined ponatinib in patients with CML and Ph+ ALL.

Andrew D. Zelenetz, MD, PhD, from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the trials investigating ABT-199 and ibrutinib that were presented at the 2012 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Meeting.

Proposed federal budget cuts that could affect the National Institutes of Health, and thus hematology/oncology research, were highlighted as an area of concern during the 54th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology in Atlanta, Georgia.