Understanding the balance between effective treatments and health-related quality of life is crucial, especially when treating older adults with hematologic malignancies. The Cancer and Aging Research Group (CARG) chemotherapy toxicity calculator has been sufficiently studied and utilized in patients with solid tumors; however, its efficacy in the hematologic malignancy setting was previously unknown. In a study recently presented at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) 63rd Annual Meeting &...

For patients with newly diagnosed diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), less than half of patients are cured with the current standard of care, and effective treatments are greatly needed. In the phase 3 POLARIX trial, a team of researchers investigated the efficacy of polatuzumab vedotin in combination with R-CHP (rituximab/cyclophosphamide/doxorubicin/prednisone) for this population. In this interview, one of the study's investigators, Dr. John Burke of Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers and the U...

While the current standard of care for relapsed/refractory large B-cell lymphoma is high-dose therapy with autologous stem cell rescue, many patients do not respond to or cannot tolerate high-dose therapy. As a result, outcomes for second-line treatment remain poor. At the recent American Society of Hematology (ASH) 63rd Annual Meeting & Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. Frederick Locke of Moffitt Cancer Center presented the primary results of ZUMA-7, a phase 3 clinical trial investigating...

Compared with the non-Hispanic White population, Hispanic and Black adolescents and young adults (AYA) with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) experience significantly inferior outcomes. In an analysis of the CALGB 10403 AYA trial presented at the recent American Society of Hematology (ASH) 63rd Annual Meeting & Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, a team of researchers led by Dr. Lori Muffly, Associate Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, investigated racial and ethnic disparities in cl...

For patients with relapsed/refractory large B-cell lymphoma (LBCL), treatment options are limited, and outcomes remain poor with the current standard of care. In the phase 3 TRANSFORM trial, Dr. Manali Kamdar, Clinical Director of Lymphoma Services at the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine, and colleagues investigated the efficacy of lisocabtagene maraleucel (liso-cel), an anti-CD19–directed chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, in this setting. Dr. Kamdar recently pres...

For patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (SCLC), cytotoxic chemotherapy remains a mainstay of treatment. However, myelosuppressive hematologic adverse events such as anemia, neutropenia, and thrombocytopenia pose a significant challenge to care. In a study recently presented at the 63rd American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, a team of researchers led by Dr. Jerome Goldschmidt, medical oncologist at Blue Ridge Cancer Care and the ...

Although survival in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) has improved over the years, there remains a need to identify racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic health disparities that contribute to poor outcomes. In a study recently presented at the 63rd American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, a team of researchers led by Dr. Sumit Gupta of the University of Toronto investigated the impact of race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status among young patients with ALL ...