When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson Low-intensity therapy for older or unfit patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) was introduced in the early 2000s in the form of low-dose cytarabine or hypomethylation therapy (azacitidine or decitabine). Recent studies...
To complement The ASCO Post’s continued comprehensive coverage of the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, here are several abstracts selected from the meeting proceedings focusing on acute myeloid leukemia (AML), such as the use of venetoclax added to...
Complete morphologic remission is considered the first requirement for achieving long-term, leukemia-free survival and a potential cure in patients with acute leukemia, including acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and is the goal of all therapeutic strategies to date. Recognizing that the majority of...
Farhad Ravandi, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, offers his expert perspective on key treatment studies in acute myeloid leukemia on the use of gilteritinib, consolidation chemotherapy, venetoclax, cladribine, azacitidine, quizartinib, decitabine, and CPX-351 (Session 616...
In a systematic review and meta-analysis reported in JAMA Oncology, Nicholas J. Short, MD, and colleagues found that minimal (or measurable) residual disease (MRD) negativity is associated with superior disease-free and overall survival in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). As stated by...
Farhad Ravandi-Kashani, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses updates from a phase I dose-escalation study of AMG 330, a bispecific T-cell engager molecule. It showed early evidence of an acceptable safety profile, drug tolerability, and antileukemic activity,...
Over the past several decades, progress in the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in the older population (generally considered to be older than 60 years) has been limited (Fig. 1). In particular, the outcome of patients over age 70 has been poor, with few long-term survivors. Although AML...
Despite Advances, Little Overall Improvement Seen in Treatment of Older Adults with AMLBy Charles A. Schiffer, MD The outcome of treatment of older adults with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) remains unsatisfactory, although certainly not a totally futile exercise. Patients satisfying the entry...
Throughout the course of medical history, we have witnessed innovations that have initially been met with skepticism but have later revolutionized our management of patients with specific disorders. The recent history of oncology drug development is full of instances where a drug that was...
Over the past 2 decades, we have witnessed remarkable progress in the treatment of patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL). The introduction of all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) in the front-line therapy setting and arsenic trioxide in the relapse setting had already led to a significant...
The word “revival” signifies a renewed use or acceptance after a period of inactivity; similarly, the word “resurrection” refers to the concept of an entity coming back to life after death. In the past year, these terms have been used frequently by us (and others) in articles calling for the return ...
The treatment of hairy cell leukemia is one of the great success stories in hematologic malignancies, with patients now having a survival that is only slightly inferior to an age-matched normal population. Purine analogs, such as cladribine, are the mainstay of first-line therapy, with...
In a phase III VALOR trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Ravandi et al found that the addition of the quinolone derivative vosaroxin to cytarabine did not significantly improve overall survival in patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML). However, differences favoring...
New evidence suggests that using advanced genetics technologies to monitor for remaining cancer cells after treatment may soon become an effective tool to inform treatment decisions and ultimately predict patient outcomes for patients with a particularly aggressive form of acute lymphocytic...