Articles related to TRANSPLANT MEDICINE

In ASH Clinical News, Dr. Geoffrey Uy, a professor in the Oncology Division at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, discusses treatment options for a transplant-ineligible patient who has Philadelphia chromosome-positive (Ph+) acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL). The patient under review is a 61-year-old female diagnosed with Ph+ ALL who has multiple comorbidities and is not a candidate for allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation.

Despite peripheral blood making up 80% of all of hematopoietic cell transplants, there are similar rates of overall survival, disease-free survival, and transplant-related mortality when comparing marrow and peripheral blood as graft sources. Chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) and cytokine release syndrome (CRS) are more significant in those who received peripheral blood, yet the standard of care hasn’t changed. Here, two doctors reflect on the debate.

Letermovir is a recently approved antiviral shown to decrease clinically significant cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection after hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) in a phase 3, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. Appearing in Blood, the authors make two key points: 1) Letermovir prophylaxis may be associated with decreased polyfunctional CMV-specific T-cell immunity after HCT, and 2) COMPASS is an analytical tool that can effectively measure polyfunctional CMV-specific T-cell immune responses.

In this article from Blood Advances highlighted by helpful visual abstracts, two key points are discussed. First, patient-specific next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based measurable residual disease (MRD) monitoring using non-DTA mutations after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (alloHCT) is independently prognostic for relapse and survival. Second, the kinetics rather than a single time point should be further evaluated when DTA mutations are used for MRD monitoring after alloHCT.

In this Original Report from the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the authors hypothesized that hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) with a mismatched unrelated donor (MMUD) using post-transplant cyclophosphamide (PTCy), a novel strategy successful in overcoming genetic disparity using mismatched related donors, would be feasible and increase access to HCT. Was their hypothesis correct?

From the pages of Clinical Advances in Hematology & Oncology comes this review of selected presentations from the 2021 TCT Meetings Digital Experience, which took place February 8-12, 2021. Expert commentary is provided by Dr. Yi-Bin Chen, Director of the Hematopoietic Cell Transplant & Cellular Therapy Program at Massachusetts General Hospital.