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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.

VIALE-A Trial: Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Originally Published: 09/24/2021
Article Source: External Web Content
(Partial video transcript; please use link to view video or complete transcript) Daniel Pollyea, MD, MS: The VIALE-A trial was a landmark confirmatory study mandated by the FDA for full approval of venetoclax. It was a randomized study that enrolled newly diagnosed patients with AML [acute myeloid leukemia] who were older or unfit for intensive chemotherapy. It randomly assigned them to receive azacitidine alone, which has been the standard of care in the United States for this population, or venetoclax plus azacitidine. The results were very clear. Based on all the relevant end points,...

ASTEX PHARMACEUTICALS PRESENTS OVERALL SURVIVAL DATA FROM ASCERTAIN PHASE 3 STUDY OF ORAL HYPOMETHYLATING AGENT INQOVI® (DECITABINE AND CEDAZURIDINE) IN MDS AND CMML AT INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON MYELODYSPLASTIC SYNDROMES

Originally Published: 09/23/2021
Article Source: External Web Content
Study achieved median overall survival of 31.7 months Updated efficacy data demonstrated an overall response rate of 62%, with 22% of patients achieving a complete response INQOVI is the only oral hypomethylating agent with equivalent exposure to its intravenous (IV) form Pleasanton, CA, September 23, 2021. Astex Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., based in Tokyo, Japan, today announced updated clinical data, including median overall survival (mOS), from the ASCERTAIN phase 3 trial of INQOVI®, the company’s orally administered fixed-dose...

Researchers discover potential Achilles heel of pediatric acute myeloid leukemia

Originally Published: 09/23/2021
Article Source: External Web Content
Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital have uncovered a potential Achilles heel of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in children that could lead to new treatments for this devastating disease. The team was the first to identify specific super-enhancers (SE) – regions of DNA that drive the overproduction of certain gene products – in cells from children with AML. These SE were associated with leukemia-promoting genes and were generally distinct from the previously published SE of adult AML. One SE of specific interest was associated with the gene RARA. Sixty-four...

FDA Approves Ruxolitinib in Chronic Graft-Versus-Host Disease

Originally Published: 09/22/2021
Article Source: External Web Content
The FDA has approved ruxolitinib (Jakafi) for the treatment of patients 12 years and older with chronic graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) after failure of 1 or 2 lines of systemic therapy, according to a press release by Incyte.  The approval is based on data from the REACH3 trial (NCT03112603), which enrollment of 330 participants.. The primary end point of REACH3 is the efficacy of ruxolitinib versus investigator’s choice of best available therapy (BAT). Secondary end points include rate of failure-free survival (FFS), best overall response, overall response rate (ORR) at the end of cycle 3...

Foundation Update Newsletter for September 2021

Originally Published: 09/21/2021
Article Source: Foundation Update

Return to School Practices for Pediatric Hematopoietic Cell Transplant Recipients During COVID-19 Pandemic

Originally Published: 09/16/2021
Article Source: External Web Content
Abstract While organizations such as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and American Academy of Pediatrics have published guidelines favoring resumption of in-person schooling during COVID-19 pandemic, there is no specific guidance on hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) recipients’ safety of returning to school. We conducted a cross-sectional survey of pediatric HCT physician members of the Pediatric Transplantation and Cellular Therapy Consortium (PTCTC) practicing in the United States (US) to describe current return to school practices during the COVID-19 pandemic for HCT...

Graft Vs Host Prophylaxis With Posttransplant Cyclophosphamide Not Associated With Increased Infection Risk

Originally Published: 09/09/2021
Article Source: External Web Content
According to the results of a study presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Hematologic Oncology (SOHO), graft vs host disease (GVHD) prophylaxis with posttransplant cyclophosphamide (PTCy) following allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) does not appear to be associated with an increased risk in bacterial, viral, or fungal infections. The investigators sought to characterize the incidence of pre-vaccination infections, including cytomegalovirus (CMV), herpes virus and BK-polyomavirus hemorrhagic cystitis, infection-related mortality, and predictive factors...

Life Expectancy Still Lower for Blood or Marrow Transplant Recipients

Originally Published: 09/09/2021
Article Source: External Web Content
While late mortality among recipients of allogeneic blood or marrow transplantation (BMT) has decreased over the past 4 decades, life expectancy among these patients remains shorter versus the U.S. population at large, a retrospective cohort study found. Compared with the general population, transplant patients had an 8.8-fold higher risk for all-cause mortality. Overall, the life expectancy of patients who underwent BMT was 20.8% lower than expected, translating into 8.7 years of life lost, reported Smita Bhatia, MD, MPH, of the Institute for Cancer Outcomes and Survivorship at the...

News for You! Foundation Update Newsletter August 2021

Originally Published: 08/17/2021
Article Source: Foundation Update

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: FDA Authorizes Additional Vaccine Dose for Certain Immunocompromised Individuals

Originally Published: 08/12/2021
Article Source: External Web Content
FDA NEWS RELEASE Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: FDA Authorizes Additional Vaccine Dose for Certain Immunocompromised Individuals Other fully vaccinated individuals do not need an additional vaccine dose right now   For Immediate Release: August 12, 2021 Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration amended the emergency use authorizations (EUAs) for both the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine and the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine to allow for the use of an additional dose in certain immunocompromised individuals, specifically, solid organ transplant recipients or those who are diagnosed with...