VJHemOnc Podcast

The 48th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT), which took place on 19-23 March 2022, was held virtually for the third time in a row due to the unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Ukraine. Despite the great success of this year’s Annual Meeting, the EBMT had to face significant challenges during these past two years of COVID-19 pandemic. 

Join us for this insightful discussion where leading experts Christian Chabannon, MD, PhD, Paoli-Calmettes Institute, Marseille, France, and President of the EBMT Anna Sureda, MD, PhD, Catalan Institute of Oncology, Duran I Reynals Hospital, Barcelona, Spain, review the efforts of the EBMT during the COVID-19 pandemic, and comment on the impact of the pandemic on transplantation practices. Prof. Chabannon and Dr Sureda also discuss the relevance of stem cell transplantation within the context of CAR-T therapy and outline the EBMT’s future projects.

Lymphoma treatment has seen many recent advances, with CAR-T therapy being a game changer for patients. Several clinical trials investigating the safety and efficacy of CAR-T products are ongoing, and many experts in the field are eager to see how the availability of CAR-T products will influence the treatment landscape. Of course, access to novel therapies varies in different regions, and while there are many approvals going through NICE, there are still questions that remain regarding lymphoma treatment in the UK.

In this exclusive podcast, Robin Sanderson, BSc, MBChB, MRCP, FRCPath, PhD, of King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK, and Tobias Menne, MD, PhD, FRCPath, of the Newcastle upon Tyne NHS Foundation Trust, Newcastle, UK, discuss lymphoma treatment in the UK, drawing focus on CAR-T therapy, including the management toxicities, treating transplant-ineligible patients, and more. 

The myeloma treatment landscape has seen a lot of progress in the last few years, with several novel therapies emerging, including immunomodulatory imide drugs (IMiDs), monoclonal and bispecific antibodies, and more recently, cereblon E3 ligase modulators (CELMoDs). Targeting resistance to those drugs is an ongoing topic of research, and it is important to learn how to best use these agents to enhance the patient’s immune response and eventually approach a cure. In amyloidosis as well, there is a growing interest in exploring immunotherapeutic strategies such as CAR-T therapy and bispecific antibodies to improve patient outcomes.

In this fascinating episode chaired by Faith Davies, MBBCh, MRCP, MD, FRCPath, of NYU Langone Medical Center, New York, NY, Charlotte Pawlyn, BA, MBBChir, MRCP, PhD, FRCPath, of The Institute of Cancer Research and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK, and Hearn Jay Cho, MD, PhD, of Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, NY, have a discussion about novel targets in 2022, commenting on IMiD resistance, immunogenic cell death, and novel treatments for amyloidosis. This discussion took place at The International Workshop on Myeloma 2022, held in Scottsdale, AZ.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms are transforming treatment and prognosis in hematological malignancies, as well as other areas of medicine. AI is becoming increasingly important for managing large data sets and patient information and is being explored in a number of areas. Despite the growing interest and promise of AI and machine learning algorithms in a medical setting, there are many challenges associated with applying these in a clinical setting, and questions that still need to be answered.

In this exclusive podcast, Amer Zeidan, MBBS, MHS, of Yale University and Yale Cancer Center, New Haven, CT, Aziz Nazha, MD, of the Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA, and Anne Sophie Kubasch, MD, of Leipzig University Hospital, Leipzig, Germany, hold a fascinating discussion on the impact of artificial intelligence and machine learning in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS).

Despite significant advances in molecular profiling and treatments for multiple myeloma, patients with high-risk and ultra high-risk disease still have poor outcomes, with variable and unpredictable responses to therapy. The MMRF-CoMMpass study (NCT01454297) is a cooperative research endeavor aiming to map the genomic profile of patients with multiple myeloma to clinical outcomes. Certain features such as loss of P53 and chromosome 1 abnormalities have been associated with high-risk disease. It is important to better characterize multiple myeloma subtypes to advance our understanding of patient responses to therapy and how high-risk features may impact long-term outcomes.

In this exclusive podcast, Jonathan Keats, PhD, Translational Genomics Research Institute, Phoenix, AZ, discusses some of the results from the CoMMpass study, highlighting specific genomic features linked to high-risk and ultra high-risk multiple myeloma. This discussion took place at The International Workshop on Myeloma 2022, held in Scottsdale, AZ.