There has been a long period of time without any new acute myeloid leukemia (AML) treatments. However, the tide has turned and data presented at ASH 2017 confirm that there are several promising therapies on the horizon. In fact, the FDA recently approved the FLT3 inhibitor midostaurin, the IDH2 inhibitor enasidenib and CPX-351 (liposomal daunorubicin and cytarabine) in the treatment of AML. In addition to this, promising data were presented with CAR T-cell therapy and (bispecific) antibodies, with the Bcl-2 inhibitor venetoclax and many more. In addition to this, results of a HOVON trial were presented demonstrating clinical benefit of azacitidine maintenance therapy in older AML patients and refractory anemia with excess of blasts. ASH 2017 also featured the presentation of several studies assessing the role of MRD in the setting of AML. With respect to acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most notable presentations included the results of the GIMEMA LAL1811 study evaluating the combination of steroids and ponatinib as frontline therapy in elderly, or unfit Philadelphia chromosome positive (Ph+) ALL and the results of a study assessing the combination of bosutinib with inotuzumab ozogamicin in patients with relapsed/refractory Ph+ ALL or CML in lymphoid blast phase. In addition to this, Rambaldi et al. presented the overall survival (OS) data for adult patients with relapsed/refractory B-precursor ALL (B-ALL) who were treated with maintenance blinatumomab. We would like to acknowledge Dr. Dimitri Breems (department of hematology, ZNA Stuivenberg, Antwerp) for his help in selecting the abstracts for this summary.
(BELG J HEMATOL 2018;9(1):28–37)
