2020 Transplantation & Cellular Therapy Meetings News

Today-

We are on site at the World Center Marriott at the 2020 Transplantation and Cellular Therapies in Orlando, Florida!

We are recapping some of the top news that have been presented during the conference—and soon we’ll speak with Dr Sergio Giralt on transplant-associated thrombotic microangiopathy, as well as Dr. Nelson Chao on endothelial injury syndromes that arise from transplantation.

Welcome to OncLive News Network! I’m Gina Columbus.

In large B-cell lymphoma, an analysis of 3 studies showed that outpatient administration of CAR T-cell therapy with lisocabtagene maraleucel is safe and effective in patients with relapsed/refractory large B-cell lymphoma.

The results showed that outpatient treatment in these 3 studies, which were TRANSCEND NHL 001, PILOT, and OUTREACH demonstrated comparable clinical outcomes and toxicity as treatment across all patients in a pivotal trial of liso-cel conducted at university medical centers.

In retrospective analyses presented at the meeting, ruxolitinib was found to be an effective and well-tolerated treatment in the refractory setting for patients with chronic graft-versus-host disease, regardless of age.

Currently, the only established first-line approach for patients with chronic GVHD is treatment with steroids. Therefore, ruxolitinib provides a good alternative compared with other treatment approaches in this difficult-to-treat patient population.

In the phase III SIERRA trial, preliminary data showed that treatment with iodine 131I apamistamab, known as Iomab-B, conditioning induced a complete remission in 84% of patients with active acute myeloid leukemia. These patients were then able to receive allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant.

Findings showed that 18% of patients who were treated with conventional care reached the same result. Moreover, rates of nonrelapse mortality at 100 days following HCT were lower in patients treated in the Iomab-B arm, at 6%, and in those who crossed over, at 10%, compared with patients who received HCT after standard therapy, which was 29%.

An analysis of the phase I/II ZUMA-1 trial showed that early steroid intervention could reduce the severity of adverse events associated with axicabtagene ciloleucel in patients with refractory large B-cell lymphoma.

With a more rigorous AE management protocol that involved earlier steroid and tocilizumab administration in patients with symptoms of cytokine release syndrome and neurologic toxicity, lower rates of severe events were seen in expansion cohort 4 of the trial versus combined cohorts 1 and 2.

All-grade CRS was observed in 93% of patients each in cohorts 4 and 1/2. However, grade 3 and higher events were lower in cohort 4 at 2% versus 13% in cohorts 1 and 2. Corresponding rates of all-grade neurologic toxicity were 61% and 64%, with grade and 3 higher rates of 17% and 28%, respectively.

An off-the-shelf Epstein Barr-virus—specific cytotoxic lymphocyte CAR product derived from cells harvested from third-party donors induced a 100% response rate in adult and pediatric patients with relapsed/refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Results of 2 cohorts were presented from the phase I trial. Cohort 1 included patients with relapsed/refractory disease following allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant, and patients with relapsed/refractory B-cell malignancies who were eligible for autologous HCT were included in cohort 2 and also received CAR T-cell therapy consolidation after transplant.

Results showed that responses in cohort 1 occurred in 57% of patients and in 100% of patients treated in cohort 2. Eighty-three percent of those treated by third-party donor cells had a response. All patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma had a response compared with 40% of those with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

That’s all for today. Thank you for watching OncLive News Network: On Location at the 2020 Transplantation and Cellular Therapies.

Signing off from Orlando, Florida I’m Gina Columbus.