CLINICAL NEWS
On Location
American Society of Hematology’s
MEETING on HEMATOLOGIC MALIGNANCIES
Attendees listening to the “How I
Treat” presentations.
t the inaugural ASH
Meeting on Hematologic Malignancies,
experts presented
important research and clinical
updates in malignant hematology. Here are some of the highlights from the meeting. To read
our full coverage, visit ashclinicalnews.org/on-location.
ASH Clinical News was also
on site to speak with presenters about the research shared at
the meeting, and the future of
hematologic malignancies. To
watch all of our interviews, visit
ashclinicalnews.org/exclusivevideos or scan the QR code
below:
Microtransplantation: A Better Option for AML
Patients Without an HLA-Identical Donor?
The optimal therapy for patients with intermediate-risk
acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in first complete remission is uncertain. Microtransplantation, the practice of
infusing patients with HLA-mismatched peripheral blood
stem cells that have been mobilized with granulocyte
colony-stimulating factor, preceded by reduced-intensity
chemotherapy, may improve survival in this group of
patients, but there has never been a comparative study
between microtransplantation and reduced-intensity
conditioning (RIC) transplantation.
In a presentation at the 2015 ASH Meeting on Hematologic Malignancies, Hui-Sheng Ai, MD, from the Department of Hematology and Transplantation at the Affiliated
Hospital of Academy of Military Medical Sciences in Beijing,
China, shared results from a study comparing microtransplantation and NSCT in AML patients in first remission.
Dr. Ai and colleagues enrolled 156 intermediate-risk
AML patients (age range = 9-59 years):
• 57 patients who had an HLA-identical donor and
were assigned to receive NSCT therapy with graftversus-host disease (GVHD) prophylaxis
• 99 patients who had no HLA-identical donor (in-
cluding 86 family-related, 9 distantly related, and 4
unrelated donors) and were assigned to receive microtransplantation therapy without GVHD prophylaxis
The researchers then calculated the probabilities of 10year overall survival and leukemia-free survival, finding
that rates of both were comparable between the micro-
ASHClinicalNews.org
transplantation and NSCT groups: 70.7 percent and 61.4
percent for 10-year overall survival, and 59.6 percent and
57.9 percent for leukemia-free survival, respectively (p
values were not reported).
The NSCT group was more likely to achieve full donor
chimerism (96.5%) and had a higher incidence of GVHD
(33.3%) than patients in the microtransplantation group;
the microtransplantation group had higher rates of donor
microchimerism (75%), slightly higher