News and Treatment Updates | Page 17 | Aplastic Anemia and MDS International Foundation (AAMDSIF) Return to top.

News and Treatment Updates

  1. Home
  2. Patients and Families

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.

Optimal donor for African Americans with hematologic malignancy: HLA-haploidentical relative or umbilical cord blood transplant

Originally Published: 07/06/2020
Article Source: External Web Content
ABSTRACT While hematopoietic cell transplant from an HLA-matched unrelated donor is potentially curative for hematologic malignancy, survival is lower for African Americans compared to Caucasians. As only about 20% of African Americans will have an HLA-matched unrelated donor many of these patients undergo HLA-haploidentical relative or umbilical cord blood transplantation. Thus, the current analyses studied transplant-outcomes after HLA-haploidentical relative (n=249) and umbilical cord blood (n=118) transplants for African Americans with hematologic malignancy between 2008 and 2016. The...

Dealing with Stress and Anxiety as a Cancer Survivor

Originally Published: 06/30/2020
Article Source: External Web Content
Disease recurrence is a common cause for the stress and anxiety typically experienced by cancer survivors even long after treatment ends. Several mental health experts provide some tips for easing these fears. June 2020 Vol 6 No 3 Adam Buffery A cancer diagnosis is an all-consuming and stressful event that drastically takes over a patient with cancer’s life. Patients with cancer may eventually get used to certain ways of doing things, including their treatment routine, and they may also get used to receiving the care and attention of their medical team and loved ones, said Karen L. Syrjala,...

Special considerations in the management of adult patients with acute leukaemias and myeloid neoplasms in the COVID-19 era: recommendations from a panel of international experts

Originally Published: 06/18/2020
Article Source: External Web Content
Summary The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 is a global public health crisis. Multiple observations indicate poorer post-infection outcomes for patients with cancer than for the general population. Herein, we highlight the challenges in caring for patients with acute leukaemias and myeloid neoplasms amid the COVID-19 pandemic. We summarise key changes related to service allocation, clinical and supportive care, clinical trial participation, and ethical considerations regarding the use of lifesaving measures for these patients. We recognise...

Pevonedistat plus azacitidine may increase survival for myelodysplastic syndrome, AML

Originally Published: 06/15/2020
Article Source: External Web Content
Pevonedistat plus azacitidine increased overall survival, event-free survival and response rates compared with azacytidine alone in higher-risk myelodysplastic syndromes and low-blast acute myeloid leukemia, according to data presented at ASCO. (continued at link)

Pegcetacoplan Outperforms Current Standard of Care in Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria

Originally Published: 06/12/2020
Article Source: External Web Content
The novel C3 inhibitor pegcetacoplan led to a significant improvement in hemoglobin level and other clinical outcomes at week 16 versus the current standard of care, eculizumab (Soliris) in patients with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH), according to findings from the phase 3 PEGASUS trial, presented ahead of the 2020 European Hematology Association Annual Congress. (continued at link)

Ruxolitinib Improves Outcomes in aGVHD Across Subgroups

Originally Published: 06/12/2020
Article Source: External Web Content
Ruxolitinib (Jakafi) induced a strong, durable response across several subgroups of patients with steroid-refractory acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD), according to data from the REACH2 trial presented at the 25th Annual European Hematology Congress. (continued at link)

Discovery in human acute myeloid leukemia could provide novel pathway to new treatments

Originally Published: 06/02/2020
Article Source: External Web Content
Researchers at Mount Sinai have discovered that human acute myeloid leukemia (AML) stem cells are dependent on a transcription factor known as RUNX1, potentially providing a new therapeutic target to achieve lasting remissions or even cures for a disease in which medical advances have been limited. (continued at link)

Being a Caregiver for a Patient with Cancer During Quarantine

Originally Published: 05/26/2020
Article Source: External Web Content
During a recent webinar on COVID-19 that focused on caregivers for patients with cancer, Shera Dubitsky, MEd, MA, Senior Advisor to Sharsheret’s Medical Advisory Board, addressed the topic of traversing the uncharted territory of COVID-19, focusing on caregivers and family members of women with breast or ovarian cancer. “These are very unprecedented times, and we understand the challenge,” said Executive Director Elana Silber, MBA, explaining that Sharsheret’s longtime model is one of remote support.

SF3B1 Variant in MDS Found to Identify Distinct Disease Entities

Originally Published: 05/17/2020
Article Source: External Web Content
For the first time, an international working group of experts in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) proposed the recognition of the SF3B1 variant as a distinct nosologic entity based on the presence of a non-inheritable genetic mutation that causes the disease.1 SF3B1 mutation identifies a condition which is characterized by ring sideroblasts, ineffective erythropoiesis, and indolent clinical course. The report, published in Blood, suggested that the mutation is found in approximately 1 in every 5 patients with MDS. About half of patients with MDS carry somatic mutations, and SF3B1 is the most...

Cancer and Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)—Facing the “C Words”

Originally Published: 05/07/2020
Article Source: External Web Content
By Urvi A. Shah, MD from JAMA Oncology Until now, most people feared a diagnosis with the dreaded “C word”—cancer—owing to its associated physical, emotional, and financial hardships as well as its social stigma. However, the rapid progression of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) from a local issue to a global pandemic has quickly made it a competitor for the spot of the most feared disease, and rightly so, given the intense strain it is placing on us individually and as a society at every level. For me, having been diagnosed with both diseases 4 years apart, COVID-19 has brought back...