ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition

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.

The combination of continuous lenalidomide and low-dose dexamethasone extends PFS and trends toward improving OS compared with the standard MPT in patients with transplant-ineligible newly diagnosed multiple myeloma.

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.

Intervention in early or "smoldering" myeloma with a three-drug regimen led to complete responses in a group of high-risk patients, suggesting a window of opportunity that may delay or prevent progression to a debilitating disease state.

A higher cumulative dose of bortezomib, including a longer duration of treatment and/or higher dose intensity, appears to improve OS in patients with previously untreated multiple myeloma.

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).

Francesco Lo-Coco, MD, Hematology, University Tor Vergata, discusses a new emerging treatment, arsenic trioxide (ATO), in acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL).

Several updates highlighted at the 2012 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting as well as other developments.

Francesco Lo-Coco, MD, Hematology, University Tor Vergata, discusses a new emerging treatment, arsenic trioxide, in acute promyelocytic leukemia.

James R. Berenson, MD, discusses a phase I/II study of pomalidomide, dexamethasone and pegylated liposomal doxorubicin for patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma.

Jorge E. Cortes, MD, Department of Leukemia, University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the use of ponatinib as initial therapy for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sundar Jagannath, MD, discusses the use of pomalidomide (POM) in relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma.

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