Personalized Medicine

Personalized medicine has expanded the treatment options for patients with cholangiocarcinoma (CCA). At the 2021 Annual Meeting of the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation (CCF), Ghassan K. Abou-Alfa, MD, MBA, Professor of Medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, discussed recent developments in personalized therapies, highlighting genomic alterations that are informing the new therapies for patients with CCA.

Orlando, FL—The investigational B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA)-­directed chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy known as JNJ-4528 induced responses in 100% of 29 evaluable patients with heavily pretreated relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, according to the results of the phase 1b/2 CARTITUDE-1 clinical trial reported at ASH 2019.

Orlando, FL—An investigational oral form of azacitidine (CC-486) as maintenance therapy induced a statistically significant improvement in overall survival (OS) compared with placebo in patients with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who achieved a complete response or complete response with incomplete hematologic recovery after treatment with induction chemotherapy.

Orlando, FL—Almost 50% of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who received treatment with the triplet of acalabrutinib (Calquence), venetoclax (Venclexta), and obinu­tuzumab (Gazyva) as first-line therapy achieved undetectable minimal residual disease (MRD) in the bone marrow after only 8 monthly cycles of therapy, according to data presented at ASH 2019.

Orlando, FL—Zanubrutinib (Brukinsa), a novel Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor—which was approved by the FDA in November 2019 for the treatment of mantle-cell lymphoma—achieved high overall response rate (ORR) and durable responses in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) or small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL), including those with high-risk cytogenetics, according to findings presented at ASH 2019.

Orlando, FL—Tazemetostat (Tazverik), a first-in-class, oral, selective EZH2 inhibitor, has demonstrated single-agent antitumor activity in patients with relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma, according to results of a phase 2 clinical trial presented at ASH 2019.

Orlando, FL—Nivolumab (Opdivo) monotherapy can be used as an effective bridge therapy to autologous stem-cell transplant (ASCT) in many patients with relapsed or refractory Hodgkin lymphoma, reported Matthew Mei, MD, Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Hematology and Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation, City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, CA, at ASH 2019.

Orlando, FL—The combination of the BCL2 inhibitor venetoclax (Venclexta) and intensive chemotherapy has demonstrated notable results in fit patients with newly diagnosed or relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML), according to results from a phase 1b/2 single-center clinical trial presented at ASH 2019.

Orlando, FL—The combination of du­velisib (Copiktra) plus venetoclax (Venclexta) is a promising all-oral regimen for the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) or small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL).

Orlando, FL—The investigational dual-targeted CD38 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy achieved an objective response in more than 90% of patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma who had received ≥3 previous therapies and whose disease had spread outside of the bone marrow. Furthermore, the therapy cleared extramedullary lesions in almost all patients with these lesions, according to results presented at ASH 2019.