Jyoti Nangalia, MBBChir, of Wellcome Sanger Institute and the University of Cambridge, discusses how her team used large-scale whole-genome sequencing to precisely time the origins of a blood cancer and measure how it grew. The information could provide opportunities for early diagnosis and intervention (Abstract LBA-1).
Andrew D. Zelenetz, MD, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, offers his expert views on five treatment studies in mantle cell lymphoma focusing on the next-generation BTK inhibitor LOXO-305; lisocabtagene maraleucel; minimal residual disease monitoring following autologous stem cell transplantation with or without rituximab maintenance; the antibody-drug conjugate VLS-101; and venetoclax, lenalidomide, and rituximab (Abstracts 117, 118, 120, 121, 122).
Smita Bhatia, MD, MPH, and Radhika Gangaraju, MD, both of the Institute for Cancer Outcomes and Survivorship, University of Alabama at Birmingham, discuss findings that showed survivors of bone marrow transplants are at a 7- to 12-fold higher risk of coronary heart disease than a sibling comparison group. They recommend aggressive management of cardiovascular risk factors to prevent morbidity from heart disease in this patient population (Abstract 73).
Tycel J. Phillips, MD, of the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center, discusses phase II data from the CITADEL-204 study, showing that patients with relapsed or refractory marginal zone lymphoma who were not previously treated with a Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitor achieved rapid and durable responses with single-agent parsaclisib. Comparable results were also observed in patients with nodal, extranodal, or splenic disease (Abstract 338).
Sara Zarnegar-Lumley, MD, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, discusses an analysis of a large cohort confirming the age-associated prevalence of IDH mutations in patients, across the age spectrum, with acute myeloid leukemia and therapeutic implications. IDH-mutated genes were found to co-occur frequently with other mutations, some of which favorably impact outcomes in patients younger than 60 (Abstract 388).
Jorge E. Cortes, MD, of the Georgia Cancer Center at Augusta University, reviews four important studies of treatment advances in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML): nilotinib vs dasatinib in newly diagnosed disease; final 5-year results from the BFORE trial on bosutinib vs imatinib for chronic phase (CP) CML; data from the OPTIC trial on ponatinib for CP-CML; and a novel class of mutated cancer-related genes associated with the Philadelphia translocation (Abstracts 45, 46, 48, 49).
