Summary
ASH 2019 did not feature ground-breaking results in the field of CML. Nevertheless, some interesting abstracts deserve to be discussed. This includes a study looking at the potential of next-generation sequencing (NGS) and digital droplet PCR (ddPCR) in monitoring responses in patients treated with a BCR-ABL1 TKI. As in previous years, many abstracts in CML focused on the concept of treatment discontinuation and treatment-free remission (TFR). In this overview, one study will be discussed looking at TFR in children, while another abstract describes a predictive score for TFR. A final TFR abstract concerns a long-term follow-up analysis of patients who discontinued TKI therapy in a French institution. With respect to therapeutic advances, two phase III trials looked into the potential of adding pegylated interferon to nilotinib in the frontline treatment of CML, while a third abstract discusses the results of a phase I trial in which a new third-generation TKI (HQP1351) was evaluated in patients with relapsed/refractory CML.
(BELG J HEMATOL 2020;11(1):13–7)
