Sufferers with blood cancers like polycythemia vera, a form of myeloproliferative neoplasm, might profit in studying extra about latest information from ASCO 2025.
Sufferers with hematologic malignancies like polycythemia vera, a form of myeloproliferative neoplasm, might profit in studying extra about latest information which was shared on the 2025 ASCO Annual Assembly.
Following the assembly, skilled oncologists, Dr. Joshua J. Sabari and Dr. Raajit Okay. Rampal, sat down for an interview with CURE to stroll by means of these updates in information, breaking down what sufferers ought to take away from the assembly.
Rampal is the director of the Heart for Hematologic Malignancies, in addition to the director of the Myeloproliferative Neoplasms Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Most cancers Heart, situated in New York. Sabari is the editor in chief of CURE. He additionally serves as an assistant professor within the Division of Drugs at NYU Grossman Faculty of Drugs and director of Excessive Reliability Group Initiatives at Perlmutter Most cancers Heart, additionally situated in New York.
Sabari: Hello, I am Dr. Josh Sabari, a thoracic medical oncologist at NYU Langone Well being’s Perlmutter Most cancers Heart in New York, and I am additionally the editor-in-chief of CURE. I wish to introduce my colleague, Dr. Raajit Rampal. Raajit, please introduce your self.
Rampal: Hello. I am Raajit Rampal at Memorial Sloan Kettering Most cancers Heart. I lead our program in myeloproliferative neoplasms.
Sabari: Raajit, thanks for becoming a member of us. I do know ASCO is traditionally not a hematologic malignancy convention — we’ve ASH for that. Nonetheless, what have been the large takeaways from the ASCO assembly within the realm of leukemia this yr?
Rampal: Sure, a few key issues to spotlight. As you simply stated, it is vital to level out that we really had a hematologic malignancy presentation as a part of the plenary session. That information, introduced on rusfertide, a hepcidin mimetic being examined for polycythemia vera, goals to probably liberate individuals from therapeutic phlebotomies. The high-level information confirmed that sufferers have been, actually, capable of be rendered freed from therapeutic phlebotomy and in addition skilled symptomatic enchancment. So, if that drug positive factors approval, I feel it might have a extremely helpful path within the therapy of polycythemia vera.
A few different key highlights: one presentation, conserving with the theme of myeloproliferative neoplasms, was on a drug referred to as Besremi (ropeginterferon alfa-2b-njft), which is FDA-approved for polycythemia vera. It was examined in important thrombocythemia versus the one different authorized drug we’ve in important thrombocythemia, Agrylin (anagrelide), which was authorized within the Nineteen Nineties. That information confirmed that, as in comparison with anagrelide, Besremi was capable of enhance outcomes for sufferers by lowering the chance of thrombosis (the principle concern with that illness) and in addition by bettering affected person symptom profiles. Lastly, it confirmed a molecular impact, which means we noticed a discount within the driver mutation burden in sufferers with important thrombocythemia. So, some attention-grabbing issues; we’ll see if that drug additionally will get approval based mostly on this part 3 information.
There was additionally an attention-grabbing presentation on blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm, a really uncommon leukemia for which we’ve an authorized drug referred to as tagraxofusp, which targets CD123. A brand new drug referred to as pivekimab sunirine, which additionally targets CD123, was introduced. The info confirmed that pivekimab sunirine was capable of induce remissions in a excessive proportion of sufferers. The one technique to remedy blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm is with a stem cell transplant, and this drug was capable of bridge sufferers to stem cell transplant. That’s maybe the crucial factor that was noticed, each in untreated and beforehand handled sufferers. I feel the ultimate level there’s that with our present anti-CD123 drug, tagraxofusp, we do see capillary leak syndrome, which is usually a high-grade occasion, and that was not noticed with pivekimab sunirine. So that will provide a special alternative for therapy.
I feel the very last thing I am going to level out was a presentation on persistent myeloid leukemia, which is clearly certainly one of our nice successes in oncology. Now we’ve an abundance of riches, which permits us to raised choose medicine for sufferers, bearing in mind their targets and their comorbidities. The most recent child on the block is Scemblix (asciminib), which is FDA-approved for frontline remedy or after failing two completely different TKIs. The drug was in contrast in a part 3b research versus nilotinib, which can also be an FDA-approved drug for persistent myeloid leukemia. The endpoint right here was really the proportion of sufferers who withdrew from therapy as a result of antagonistic occasions. What was discovered was that sufferers have been extra prone to keep on asciminib.
The significance of this discovering is that with extra highly effective medicine, we all know we are able to get sufferers into remissions faster with persistent myeloid leukemia, which suggests they’ll normally go on to a trial of treatment-free remission, the place we cease the drug and see if the illness comes again. Nonetheless, the issue has been that lots of the second-generation TKIs we use in persistent myeloid leukemia have extra toxicities. It is a case the place we do not see extra toxicities with a special and stronger drug. So, I feel to me, these are among the main takeaways from ASCO, which had a good variety of hematologic malignancies abstracts this yr.
Sabari: Yeah, fairly spectacular. , it is attention-grabbing that hematologic malignancies are really an amalgamation of many ailments. Thanks for summarizing that so eloquently. And I admire you being right here. Thanks for all of the work that you simply do with CURE and for our readers. Dr. Rampal, thanks for becoming a member of us.
Rampal: Thanks a lot for the chance.
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