ASH 2021 Revisited: Plenary Sessions, ZUMA-7 & COVID Vaccines

Today we revisit three studies presented at the ASH 2021 Annual Meeting. Primary Analysis of ZUMA-7 The 2021 American Society of Hematology Plenary Sessions in Atlanta, Georgia, heard data from a new study of CAR-T cell therapy in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma: the Phase III randomized ZUMA-7 trial. This compared Axicabtagene Ciloleucel (Axi-Cell) with the current standard-of-care in patients whose disease had relapsed or was refractory after first-line therapy.After the talk, Oncology Times reporter Peter Goodwin caught up with the lead investigator Frederick Locke, MD, Co-Leader of the Immuno-Oncology Program, and Vice Chair of the Department of Blood and Marrow Transplant and Cellular Immunotherapy at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, FL.How Patients with AML & MDS Respond to COVID Vaccines ASH 2021 held a cluster of sessions devoted to coronavirus infection in patients with hematologic malignancies.Since cancer patients in general are at higher risk from COVID-19 than the general population, it has become vitally important to know whether vaccines can protect them. Vaccine responses in patients with myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myeloid leukemia have been investigated by a team led by Jeffrey Lancet, MD, Chair of Malignant Hematology at the Moffit Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida.Oncology Times reporter Peter Goodwin asked him about his findings.Antibody Response to VaccinationWhether or not to vaccinate your patient for COVID-19 may not be obvious in some clinical situations, and in hematologic malignancy this cannot be assumed.At ASH, German investigator Susanne Saussele, MD, reported her group’s findings about vaccination responses in patients with a range of myeloid and lymphoid malignancies. She is Head of the CML Excellence Center III. Medizinische Klinik, Hematology and Oncology at the University of Mannheim in Mannheim, Germany.