April 23rd 2021
The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted to uphold the original language of the emergency use authorization for Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccination, and is possible the 1-dose vaccine could resume Saturday.
Blood or Marrow Transplantation Recipients Experience Higher Risks of Cognitive Impairment
February 25th 2018Blood or marrow transplantation (BMT) can have an impact on a patient’s cognitive functioning, affecting a survivor’s ability to integrate with a group of people and return to work. In addition, BMT recipients can experience a weakened memory, a loss of attention and concentration, and difficulty learning.
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ICER Report: Costs of Approved CAR T-Cell Therapies Aligned With Clinical Benefit
February 21st 2018CAR T-cell therapies tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah, Novartis) and axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta, Kite Pharma/Gilead) may come with hefty price tags, but the cost-effectiveness of both therapies fell below or within commonly cited thresholds of $50,000 to $150,000 per quality-adjusted life years, according to a report by the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review.
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Second-Line Nilotinib May Enable Patients With CML to Achieve Treatment-Free Remission
February 21st 2018Patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) who have a sustained deep molecular response can maintain treatment-free remission for at least 48 weeks after using second-line nilotinib, according to a new study published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
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Pricing of Monoclonal Antibody Therapies: Higher If Used for Cancer?
The annual price of monoclonal antibody therapies used in oncology and hematology is about $100,000 higher than those used in other disease states.
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Study Documents Chronic Pain Associated With Sickle Cell Disease
February 14th 2018Sickle cell disease (SCD), the most common inherited blood disorder in the United States, is marked by episodes of acute pain, but there is increasing recognition that it can transition to chronic persistent SCD pain. A recent study found that the presence of pain on 3 or more days a week is independently associated with worse patient-reported pain interference and anxiety.
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The addition of daratumumab to standard-of-care regimens used to treat multiple myeloma, such as bortezomib, melphalan, and prednisone, decreased the risk of disease progression or death in newly diagnosed patients who were ineligible for autologous stem-cell transplantation.
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New Imaging Technique Reveals Inner Structure of Red Blood Cells
February 9th 2018Researchers have used super-resolution microscopy to unveil the geodesic mesh that supports the outer membrane of a red blood cell, in a discovery that could eventually help uncover how the malaria parasite hijacks this mesh when it invades and eventually destroys red blood cells. The work was published in the latest issue of Cell Reports.
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Long-Term Follow-Up of CAR T in ALL Indicates Early Treatment Extends Survival
February 9th 2018A long-term follow-up analyzing the toxic effects and results from a phase 1 clinical trial of adult patients with relapsed B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) who were treated with CD19-specific chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells found patients with low disease burden had a longer medial overall survival and a lower incidence of toxicity.
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CAR T-Cell Therapy Effective for Children With ALL, Updated Study Results Show
February 1st 2018Final updated results of the pivotal phase 2 study that led to last year’s FDA approval of the first chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy were published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
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ICER Report: Despite High Price, Emicizumab for Hemophilia A Cuts Costs
January 31st 2018While the wholesale acquisition cost of the hemophilia A drug is approximately $482,000 for the first year of treatment and $448,000 for subsequent years, a draft report found that the drug would reduce the budget by approximately $1.85 billion per patient annually for patients aged 12 and older. In patents aged 12 and younger, emicizumab at wholesale acquisition cost pricing would reduce the budget by approximately $720,000 per patient annually.
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Gut Microbiome Diversity Associated With Blood Infections in Pediatric Patients With Cancer
January 27th 2018Every year, central lines are associated with causing blood infections in an estimated 400,000 patients with cancer. However, new research has found that changes in the microbiome may be responsible for some or many of the infections usually attributed to central lines.
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Kyprolis Label Gets Updated Improved Survival Data for Patients With Relapsed/Refractory MM
January 22nd 2018The FDA has approved a supplemental New Drug Application to add new overall survival (OS) data for carfilzomib (Kyprolis). The label will now show that carfilzomib and dexamethasone reduced the risk of death by 21% and increased OS by 7.6 months compared with bortezomib and dexamethasone in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma (MM).
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Precursor to Blood Cancer Puts Patients at Risk Indefinitely, Study Finds
January 20th 2018Despite years of stability, patients with monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) are at risk of progressing to multiple myeloma or another blood cancer, according to a long-term follow-up study published in New England Journal of Medicine. MGUS usually causes no problems, but it is a precursor to cancer.
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Promacta Earns Breakthrough Therapy Designation by FDA for Severe Aplastic Anemia
January 11th 2018Recently, the FDA granted a breakthrough therapy designation to eltrombopag (Promacta, Novartis) for combination use with standard immunosuppressive therapy as a first-line treatment for patients with severe aplastic anemia (SAA).
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Combination Therapy May Benefit Subset of Patients With CLL Who Have Poor Response to Ibrutinib
January 7th 2018A subset of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) with highly expressed CD49d have poorer outcomes while on Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor ibrutinib, which antagonizes B-cell receptor (BCR) signals. However, a team of researchers may have found a way to treat these patients.
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Higher Rates of Cardiovascular Adverse Events in Patients With MM Treated With Carfilzomib
January 4th 2018Carfilzomib was associated with higher rates of all-grade and high-grade cardiovascular adverse events (CVAE), and both later trial phase and higher doses of carfilzomib were associated with higher rates of CVAE, according to a study in JAMA Oncology.
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Risk Model Predicts Mortality in Patients With AML
December 31st 2017Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the most common form of acute leukemia and has a poor 5-year survival rate, especially among older people. Cancer researchers have created a model that can predict mortality after AML treatment, so that it can help guide decision-making for patients and providers.
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Determining Discharge Criteria for Pediatric Patients Admitted With Febrile Neutropenia
December 30th 2017Management of pediatric oncology patients with febrile neutropenia and hospitalization duration currently vary by institution and by provider. A poster presented at the 59th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting reviewed pediatric hematology/oncology patients who were admitted with febrile neutropenia to determine discharge and release, as well as subsequent readmission within the next 4 days.
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Dr Nina Shah on the Impact of New Treatments for Multiple Myeloma
December 29th 2017The last 5 years have seen a host of new drugs approved for multiple myeloma, improving survival times for patients, explained Nina Shah, MD, associate professor, University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine.
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Dr Stephen Schuster on Institution Commitments to Deliver CAR T Therapies
December 28th 2017Deciding to administer CAR T-cell therapies is an institutional commitment that requires educating all clinicians who will be involved and partnerships with other organizations, said Stephen Schuster, MD, of the Perelman School of Medicine.
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Long-Term Effects of G-CSF Use in Patients With Cyclic Neutropenia
December 26th 2017Based on long-term observations, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor utilization is a safe and effective treatment to prevent infections and improve quality of life in patients with cyclic neutropenia, according to an analysis in The New England Journal of Medicine.
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Diagnosing Congenital Neutropenia
December 23rd 2017Physicians caring for patients with severe congenital neutropenia should be ready to detect issues with multiple systems in the body, explained Seth Corey, MD, of the Virginia Commonwealth University and the Massey Cancer Center & Children's Hospital of Richmond, during a session at the 59th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia.
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