Darren Denjay Pan, MD, on Multiple Myeloma: Inflammatory Biomarkers and Outcomes After CAR T-Cell Therapy
2023 ASH
Darren Denjay Pan, MD, of Tisch Cancer Institute and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, discusses his findings on risk assessment of CAR T-cell therapy for patients with multiple myeloma. Higher fibrinogen and ferritin values at baseline were associated with inferior overall survival after CAR T-cell therapy, even after controlling for tumor burden. Higher baseline absolute lymphocyte count was also associated with higher risk and grade of immune effector cell–associated neurotoxicity syndrome, an important toxicity to consider for patients receiving CAR T (Abstract 92).
The ASCO Post Staff
William G. Wierda, MD, PhD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses results from the phase I/II BRUIN study, which shows encouraging response and overall survival in patients with Richter transformation. Although this condition remains a challenging diagnosis, pirtobrutinib represents a potential treatment option that warrants further investigation, according to Dr. Wierda (Abstract 1737).
The ASCO Post Staff
Hamish S. Scott, PhD, and Chris Hahn, PhD, both of Australia’s SA Pathology and Centre for Cancer, discuss ERG, a new predisposition gene for bone marrow failure and hematologic malignancy. Identifying causal germline ERG variants has direct clinical implications for diagnosis, counseling, surveillance, and treatment strategies, according to Drs. Scott and Hahn (Abstract LBA5).
The ASCO Post Staff
Sara Khan, DO, of the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine and HCA Healthcare, discusses her findings showing that women received only 33% of grants from the National Institutes of Health from 2012 to 2022 in nonmalignant hematologic research. Although some agencies have made strides in this area, others continue to have a significant gap. Identifying these areas of gender disparity will enable targeted efforts to bridge this gap and advance gender equality (Abstract 5113).
The ASCO Post Staff
Michael Wang, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses phase III results from the Sympatico study, which shows the combination of ibrutinib and venetoclax improved progression-free survival vs ibrutinib plus placebo in patients with relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma. According to Dr. Wang, these findings demonstrate a favorable benefit-risk profile for ibrutinib plus venetoclax in this patient population (Abstract LBA2).
The ASCO Post Staff
Andrew Srisuwananukorn, MD, of The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses a novel artificial intelligence model that can distinguish between prefibrotic primary myelofibrosis and essential thrombocythemia. This proposed model may assist clinicians in identifying patients who may benefit from disease-specific therapies or enrollment in clinical trials (Abstract 901).
