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News and Treatment Updates

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Here's where you'll find a regularly updated, broad range of articles written by the AAMDSIF team, allied health organizations and news organizations. By staying well-informed, patients and families are practicing a form of self-support that will help them be more effective self-advocates when engaging with health care providers.

What's New? Foundation Update Newsletter February 2021

Originally Published: 02/16/2021
Article Source: Foundation Update

Trading One Disease for Another: Patients With Chronic Graft-vs-Host Disease May Face Lifelong Complications

Originally Published: 02/10/2021
Article Source: External Web Content
The field of allogeneic stem cell transplantation continues to improve survival for patients with previously incurable blood cancers. However, up to 50% of patients who undergo transplantation with donor cells will develop chronic graft-vs-host disease, a potentially deadly condition that can also cause lifelong complications. The ASCO Post spoke with Katie Schoeppner, MSW, LICSW, Director of Patient Services at the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP); Susan K. ­Stewart, Executive Director, BMT InfoNet; and Meredith Cowden, MA, LPCC-S, of the Meredith A. Cowden Foundation, about the many...

TP53 Modifier Impresses in Early MDS/AML Study

Originally Published: 01/26/2021
Article Source: External Web Content
A drug that targets a common mutation in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) led to historically high response rates as initial treatment for MDS and acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a small clinical trial showed. Overall, 71% of patients with TP53-mutant conditions responded to the combination of eprenetapopt and azacitidine, including complete remissions (CRs) in 44%. A majority of patients with MDS or AML had objective responses. Patients who responded to eprenetapopt lived almost twice as long as those who did not benefit from the treatment. (Article continues at link above.)

Stem Cell Transplants for Leukemia

Originally Published: 01/21/2021
Article Source: External Web Content
Stem cell transplantation (SCT) offers many people with blood and bone marrow cancers hope for a potential cure. More than 17,500 stem cell transplants are performed in the U.S. annually. MyLeukemiaTeam sat down with Dr. Matt Kalaycio to better understand stem cell transplantations as a treatment for leukemia. Dr. Kalaycio is the former chair of the department of hematology and medical oncology at the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Center Cancer Institute. An expert in blood cancers, Dr. Kalaycio is currently a professor in the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine at Case Western Reserve...

Clinical characteristics and outcomes of COVID-19 in haematopoietic stem-cell transplantation recipients: an observational cohort study

Originally Published: 01/19/2021
Article Source: External Web Content
Background Haematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (HSCT) recipients are considered at high risk of poor outcomes after COVID-19 on the basis of their immunosuppressed status, but data from large studies in HSCT recipients are lacking. This study describes the characteristics and outcomes of HSCT recipients after developing COVID-19. Methods In response to the pandemic, the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR) implemented a special form for COVID-19-related data capture on March 27, 2020. All patients—irrespective of age, diagnosis, donor type, graft source...

What's New? Foundation Update Newsletter January 2021

Originally Published: 01/19/2021
Article Source: Foundation Update

Azacitidine Maintenance Fails to Improve Post-Transplant Outcomes in High-Risk AML and MDS

Originally Published: 01/15/2021
Article Source: External Web Content
Maintenance treatment with single-agent azacitidine at a dose of 32 mg/m2 daily for five days did not lead to improved survival in patients with high-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) or acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who had undergone allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT), according to findings from a phase III randomized controlled trial published in Blood Advances. Despite the disappointing results, “this randomized trial with azacitidine maintenance showed that a prospective trial in the posttransplant setting was feasible and safe but challenging,” the authors, led by...

Outcomes of Adding a Fourth Chemotherapy Course in AML

Originally Published: 01/14/2021
Article Source: External Web Content
Administering 2 additional courses of chemotherapy with high-dose cytarabine (Ara-C) after 2 courses of induction therapy improved relapse rates but did not improve overall survival for patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), according to research in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.1  For patients with AML who are younger than age 60 years, the optimal number of chemotherapy courses has been unclear. Previous studies found that 5 total courses offered no additional benefit over 4 courses of treatment.2,3 Therefore, a team of investigators conducted an analysis to determine whether 3 or...

Real-World Treatment Patterns, FLT3 Testing, and Outcomes in AML

Originally Published: 01/14/2021
Article Source: External Web Content
Amer Zeidan, MBBS, MHS, Yale University School of Medicine and Yale Cancer Center, New Haven, Connecticut, discusses updated results from an ongoing retrospective study examining FLT3 testing trends, treatment patterns, and overall survival in patients with relapsed/refractory FLT3-positive acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Dr Zeidan presented these results at the virtual 62nd American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting. Transcript Hello. My name is Amer Zeidan and I'm Associate Professor of Medicine at Yale University, in section of hematology, and the director of Hematology Early...

Eprenetapopt (APR-246) and Azacitidine in TP53-Mutant Myelodysplastic Syndromes

Originally Published: 01/11/2021
Article Source: External Web Content
PURPOSE Approximately 20% of patients with TP53-mutant myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) achieve complete remission (CR) with hypomethylating agents. Eprenetapopt (APR-246) is a novel, first-in-class, small molecule that restores wild-type p53 functions in TP53-mutant cells. METHODS This was a phase Ib/II study to determine the safety, recommended phase II dose, and efficacy of eprenetapopt administered in combination with azacitidine in patients with TP53-mutant MDS or acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with 20%-30% marrow blasts (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT03072043). RESULTS Fifty-five...