EHA 2026 Had Something for Everyone, From Pediatric Practitioners to “Myeloma Maniacs”

The European Hematology Association (EHA) 2026 Congress, held June 11-14 in Stockholm, Sweden, delivered a broad program of advances spanning basic science to clinical practice. The plenary and presidential sessions drew crowds of attendees to hear data in multiple myeloma and pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)—along with a reminder that some of the most important work in hematology may still lie ahead.

For Myeloma Practitioners: Phase 3 Data Supporting New SOC

At the plenary session, Peter Voorhees, MD, of Atrium Health Levine Cancer Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina, presented primary results from MonumenTAL-3 (NCT05455320)—the first randomized phase 3 trial of a GPRC5D-targeted therapy for relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma—to an audience that has heard a flurry of positive updates in the space recently. “Us myeloma maniacs are a bit spoiled with the embarrassment of riches that we have available at our disposal,” Voorhees acknowledged during the Q&A portion.

The trial randomized patients with 1 or more prior lines of therapy to talquetamab (Tal) plus daratumumab (Dara) with or without pomalidomide, or to daratumumab, pomalidomide, and dexamethasone (Dara-Pom-Dex) as control. Both experimental arms delivered striking results: Tal-Dara-Pom reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 72% vs control, and Tal-Dara reduced it by 67%. Two-year progression-free survival rates were 81.3% and 77.6%, respectively, compared with 51.2% for Dara-Pom-Dex. In first-relapse patients, the HRs were 0.19 for the triplet and approximately 0.3 for the doublet—numbers that prompted Voorhees to argue these data “support talquetamab with daratumumab with or without pomalidomide as new standard of care for patients with relapsed/refractory myeloma as early as first relapse.” Full results were simultaneously published in the New England Journal of Medicine.¹

For Pediatric Practitioners: Landmark Results in High-Risk B-ALL and a Genomic Frontier

The plenary session also featured practice-changing findings for pediatric oncologists, via the AIEOP-BFM ALL 2017 trial (NCT03643276), presented by Martin Schrappe, MD, PhD, of University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein in Germany.² The trial asked whether replacing 2 of the most toxic chemotherapy cycles in the high-risk B-ALL backbone with 2 cycles of blinatumomab would improve event-free survival (EFS). The answer was emphatic: EFS reached 83.0% in the blinatumomab arm vs 70.3% in the chemotherapy arm. Central nervous system–isolated relapse occurred in just 1 patient in the experimental arm, but 9 in the chemotherapy arm, and deaths during complete response after transplant receipt were 2 vs 12.

“This is the first moment in my career I see the patient has major benefit in reduction in toxicity,” Schrappe said, noting the particular importance of avoiding chemotherapy as much as possible for pediatric patients.

In an interview with The American Journal of Managed Care®, he described plans to further investigate how much chemotherapy can be averted.³

“I think, in the future, all risk groups will be exposed to blinatumomab in one or the other setting; the big question is rather how much chemotherapy is still needed. This is not known,” he said. “We are starting a study in low-risk patients in a few weeks, in which we try to replace large parts of the chemotherapy with immunotherapy, with the help of immunotherapy, to allow patients to stay basically all the time at home and not to go to the hospital for a long time. I think this is the way to go.”

The presidential session of the EHA 2026 Congress also allocated a slot to a pediatric hematology expert. Franck Bourdeaut, MD, PhD, of the Curie Institute in Paris, offered a framework for understanding cancer predisposition in children and adolescents in the next-generation sequencing (NGS) era. Whereas in adults, mature cells are exposed to mutagens and become cancer cells over time, Bourdeaut and others are seeking to better understand the genes that make cells derail in childhood cancer.

The NGS era offers new estimations of predisposition, allowing research to decipher the actual causality of cancer-causing variants, he said. But NGS has also introduced new interpretive challenges: Adult cancer genes are appearing in pediatric cohorts at unexplained rates, mosaic oncogenic variants can evade standard germline testing, and penetrance remains poorly defined for many newly discovered susceptibility genes.

Bourdeaut highlighted surveillance as an area where evidence is accumulating: Data from researchers led by David Malkin, MD, demonstrate that systematic clinical, laboratory, and imaging surveillance from birth improves outcomes in Li-Fraumeni syndrome,⁴ and formal guidelines are now being developed for a growing list of predisposition syndromes. Looking further ahead, he pointed toward immunotherapy and, potentially, vaccines.

“Discovering these things, despite their syndromes, is not enough,” Bourdeaut said. “We now take this big opportunity of next-generation sequencing discoveries to make a step forward and actually integrate with these patients.”

References

1. Mina R, Beksac M, Rodríguez-Otero P, et al. Talquetamab-daratumumab in relapsed or refractory myeloma. N Engl J Med. Published online June 13, 2026. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2604657
2. Schrappe M, Locatelli F, Valsecchi MG, et al. Replacement of high dose combination chemotherapy with blinatumomab in newly diagnosed pediatric high-risk B-cell ALL improves efficacy and safety in the randomized phase 3 AIEOP-BFM ALL 2017 trial. Presented at: EHA 2026 Congress; June 13, 2026; Stockholm, Sweden.
3. McCormick B, Schrappe M. Blinatumomab improves outcomes, toxicity in high-risk pediatric ALL: Martin Schrappe, MD, PhD. AJMC. June 13, 2026. Accessed June 18, 2026. https://www.ajmc.com/view/blinatumomab-improves-outcomes-toxicity-in-high-risk-pediatric-all-martin-schrappe-md-phd
4. Villani A, Shore A, Wasserman JD, et al. Biochemical and imaging surveillance in germline TP53 mutation carriers with Li-Fraumeni syndrome: 11 year follow-up of a prospective observational study. Lancet Oncol. 2016;17(9):1295-1305. doi:10.1016/S1470-2045(16)30249-2