Hematology

The annual price of monoclonal antibody therapies used in oncology and hematology is about $100,000 higher than those used in other disease states.

Sickle 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.

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.

Researchers 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.

A 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.

Coverage from the 59th Annual Meeting and Exposition of the American Society of Hematology, December 9-12, 2017.

Coverage from the 59th Annual Meeting and Exposition of the American Society of Hematology, December 9-12, 2017.

Final 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.

Coverage from the 59th Annual Meeting and Exposition of the American Society of Hematology, December 9-12, 2017.

While 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.

Every 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.

The 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).

Despite 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.

A study finds that protein markers may be a better predictor of drug response than genetic mutation are in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). As a result, some patients who could benefit from treatment may not be eligible under current approval specifications.

The challenges that adolescents and young adults face before and after treatment are all unique to an individual patient, according to Julie Wolfson, MD, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine.

Recently, 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).

A 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.

New drugs to treat multiple myeloma (MM) have provided clinical benefits, but a study published in the Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy found not all of them can be considered cost effective.

New drugs to treat multiple myeloma (MM) have provided clinical benefits, but a study published in the Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy found not all of them can be considered cost effective.

Carfilzomib 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.

Acute 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.

Management 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.

The 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.

Deciding 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.

Based 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.