Standing out at ASH
11 December 2024
Peter Mac clinical haematologist and researcher Dr Adrian Minson received the ASH-HSANZ Abstract Achievement Award at the American Society of Haematology (ASH) congress in San Diego on 7 December.
His research demonstrated that the addition of a new treatment called glofitimab, could improve response rates without additional toxicity in younger patients with high-burden, high-risk large B-cell lymphoma.
Dr Minson commented that this younger group of patients with challenging disease features have a higher chance of their disease not responding to standard of care chemotherapy, despite many patients receiving intensive f treatments which often do not translate to improved responses and frequently caused increased toxicity.
“This group of patients have disease which is difficult to treat and previous studies where novel drugs have been added to chemotherapy often resulted in increased toxicity and reduced chemotherapy delivery intensity without improving outcomes,” he said.
“As glofitamab, a bispecific antibody treatment, is effective in relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma we wanted to see if its addition to two standard chemotherapy regimens would improve outcomes in younger patients with high-risk large B-cell lymphoma.
“We found that both glofitimab treatment regimens tested resulted in high rates of deep and durable responses in a very high disease burden, high-risk patient group.
“Importantly the study design enabled rapid treatment initiation, minimal new toxicity, and uncompromised chemotherapy delivery intensity.”
The treatment combination will be further examined in a larger cohort of patients as the next step, he explained.
Professor John Seymour, Director of Haematology at Peter Mac, said that this year in particular the Haematology Department at Peter Mac had made an enormous contribution to the ASH Meeting.
“The ASH Meeting is the largest and most impactful global haematology meeting with 30,000 attendees and less than five percent of all submitted abstracts being selected for oral presentation,” he said.
“Our team contributed 66 abstracts as authors to the congress with 29 selected as oral presentations and another 36 as posters.
“It is also impressive that we had research outcomes presented at ASH with an immenent publication in a high profile journal.”