This article is part of the July 2018 issue of ASBMT eNews. View the full issue in PDF format here.
Better Overall Survival After Autologous Transplant for Early Therapy Failure
Follicular lymphoma patients who receive autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation for early therapy failure have better overall survival than patients who do not receive an autologous transplant, reports a study published in Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation. Researchers analyzed data from 175 patients who received autologous transplantation and 174 patients who did not. All of the patients experienced early therapy failure after frontline chemotherapy. Patients who received an autologous transplant within one year of failure had better five-year overall survival (73%) than the patients who did not receive an autologous transplant (60%), leading researchers to conclude that early consolidation with autologous transplant should be considered for follicular lymphoma patients that experience early therapy failure. Read More
ALT-803 Treatment of Relapse After Transplant for Hematologic Malignancy
Tested for the first time in humans to treat relapse after transplantation, ALT-803 was found to be safe and well tolerated, according to a study appearing in Blood. ALT-803, an interleukin-15 (IL-15) superagonist complex, was administered intravenously or subcutaneously to 33 hematologic malignancy patients who relapsed more than 60 days after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. In addition to being safe and well tolerated, ALT-803 increased natural killer and CD8+ T cell numbers and function. Adverse events were associated with the injections. The intravenous injection included constitutional symptoms temporally related to increased serum IL-6 and interferon-γ. Subcutaneous injections led to site rashes infiltrated with lymphocytes without acute constitutional symptoms. In addition, patients who received subcutaneous injections had serum concentrations that lasted more than 96 hours. Researchers discovered that 19% of patients responded to the treatment, with one patient experiencing complete remission that lasted seven months. Read More.
HLA-Matched Transplant Safe and Effective for Older AML and MDS Patients
A study appearing in Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation reports that haploidentical transplantation is safe and effective for older acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome patients. This study included 43 patients with a mean age of 61. Among the findings, 42 patients engrafted donor cells; at six months, grades II to IV acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) was 35% and grades III to IV acute GVHD was 5%; chronic GVHD at two years was 9%; two-year overall survival was 42%; two-year progression-free survival was also 42%; and two-year relapse incidence was 24%. The best progression-free survival outcomes occurred in patients with intermediate/good cytogenetics, in first or second remission and with a donor aged 40 years or younger. Read More