Latest Myeloma Research To Be Presented At The American Society Of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting (ASCO 2015)

The 51st annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) started earlier today, May 29, and will go through June 2 in Chicago.
Approximately 30,000 physicians and researchers from all over the world are expected to attend the five-day meeting to discuss current research in cancer treatment and care.
During the meeting, there will be presentations about all types of cancer, including many presentations focused specifically on multiple myeloma. In fact, more than 90 myeloma-related studies are scheduled to be presented, in one form or another, in connection with the ASCO meeting.
RELATED LINKS Lists of ASCO 2015 - Oral presentations |
The ASCO meeting is one of three annual scientific meetings where important new myeloma-related research findings are reported. The other two key conferences are the annual meetings of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) and the European Hematology Association (EHA).
As in previous years, The Myeloma Beacon will be covering the ASCO 2015 meeting. Readers can expect a number of articles during and after the meeting about the key myeloma findings.
An Overview Of The Meeting And Multiple Myeloma
One of the reasons ASCO’s annual meeting is held in Chicago every year is that few other U.S. cities have convention facilities large enough to host a meeting of ASCO’s size.
Yet, despite ASCO’s overall size, the amount of myeloma-related research presented at the meeting is usually lower than at the somewhat smaller – but more focused – ASH meeting held each December.
This year is no exception. The number of myeloma-related presentations that will take place at the 2015 ASCO meeting is about one-quarter the number of myeloma-related presentations at last December's ASH meeting.
Nevertheless, there are still a number of important myeloma-related presentations that will take place at this year’s ASCO meeting.
Potential New Myeloma Therapies
Most of the key myeloma-related presentations at the ASCO meeting will report research related to potential new myeloma therapies. Among these presentations, researchers are particularly interested in a handful that will summarize results from clinical trials testing therapies known as monoclonal antibodies.
Monoclonal antibodies identify cancer cells through specific proteins on the surface of those cells. Once they have identified the cancer cells, the drugs either signal the immune system to attack the cancer cells, or they attack the cells themselves, or they do both (signal and attack on their own).
Taking center stage at ASCO among the monoclonal antibodies being developed as potential new myeloma therapies will be elotuzumab and daratumumab.
Interim results from an ongoing Phase 3 trial will be presented showing that elotuzumab, when added to Revlimid and dexamethasone, prolongs progression-free survival in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (abstract #8508).
Another presentation will summarize results from a smaller Phase 2 trial looking at the efficacy and safety of elotuzumab in combination with Velcade and dexamethasone (abstract #8573).
As for daratumumab, there is keen interest in the results that will be presented at ASCO from an ongoing Phase 2 trial of the drug. In the trial, heavily pretreated myeloma patients have received treatment with "single-agent" daratumumab, meaning they have received daratumumab without any other myeloma therapies.
The presentation of the daratumumab Phase 2 trial results has been categorized by ASCO as a "late-breaking abstract," a designation generally reserved for particularly important studies, and the abstract for the presentation is currently under embargo.
Monoclonal antibodies are part of a broader class of cancer therapies – known as immunotherapies – that seek to use the body's immune system to fight cancer. Another presentation at ASCO that is drawing substantial attention within the myeloma community will summarize early results from a Phase 1 trial testing a novel immunotherapy known as chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy.
Researchers are investigating CAR-T therapies for a number of different cancers. The first step in CAR-T treatment involves harvesting immune system cells known as T-cells from a cancer patient. The T-cells are then treated in a way that genetically alters them so that, when the cells are re-infused into the same patient, they attack and kill the patient’s cancer cells.
In the Phase 1 trial of CAR-T therapy in myeloma patients, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania are investigating the efficacy and safety of a particular CAR-T therapy known as CTL019. The trial is being conducted in heavily pretreated myeloma patients. The ASCO presentation about the study will report results for the first five patients treated in the trial (abstract #8517).
Results also will be presented for studies investigating several new myeloma therapies under development for relapsed myeloma patients, including CUDC-907 (abstract #8537), evofosfamide (TH-302) (abstract #8579), MOR202 (abstract #8574), and venetoclax (ABT-199) (abstract #8576 and abstract #8580). Most of these trials are Phase 1 studies, which have as their primary objectives assessing the safety of the drug and establishing the maximum tolerated dose.
Existing Therapies
As one might expect, there will be many presentations at ASCO looking at the treatment of multiple myeloma with existing (already-approved) therapies. There will be, in particular, a number of presentations looking at studies involving Kyprolis. Of those presentations, there is particular interest in one that will provide more detailed results of the so-called ENDEAVOR trial, for which initial results were reported earlier this year (see related Beacon news article).
The ENDEAVOR trial is a large, head-to-head clinical trial comparing high-dose Kyprolis plus dexamethasone to standard-dose Velcade plus dexamethasone in patients with relapsed myeloma. The results of that trial show that patients treated with high-dose Kyprolis and dexamethasone had twice the progression-free survival of patients treated with standard-dose Velcade and dexamethasone (abstract #8509).
There also are three presentations on the ASCO agenda that will report results of studies investigating Farydak (panobinostat) in different groups of multiple myeloma patients. One of those presentations will report updated results of a small Phase 2 trial examining the use of Farydak in combination with Revlimid and dexamethasone in relapsed myeloma patients. This study is of interest because Farydak is believed to work best in combination with Velcade and other drugs in the proteasome inhibitor class of therapies. The results to be presented at ASCO, however, hint at the possibility that Farydak also may work well in combination with Revlimid, and with fewer side effects than when combined with Velcade (abstract #8528).
Clinical Trial Updates
Also on the ASCO agenda are presentations with updated results from several important myeloma clinical trials. There will be current results, for example, from the so-called "CALGB" trial, which has been investigating the efficacy and safety of Revlimid maintenance therapy after single autologous stem cell transplantation (abstract #8523).
Another presentation will provide updated results from the so-called FIRST trial. The trial involves newly diagnosed, transplant-ineligible myeloma patients, and it compares continuous Revlimid and low-dose dexamethasone treatment to two alternative therapies: fixed-duration Revlimid and low-dose dexamethasone, and fixed duration melphalan, prednisone, and thalidomide. Updated overall survival data from this trial will be presented at ASCO (abstract #8524).
A third update will report a secondary analysis of results from the "ASPIRE" trial, which compares Kyprolis, Revlimid, and dexamethasone to Revlimid and dexamethasone alone in patients with relapsed multiple myeloma (abstract #8525). The researchers will report treatment outcomes by previous line of therapy.
Chromosomal Abnormalities
In addition to results related to specific treatments or clinical trials, there will be several presentations looking at the impact of specific chromosomal abnormalities on the prognosis of multiple myeloma patients. One of these presentations will focus on the del(17p) chromosomal abnormality (abstract #8582). Two other presentations will examine the impact of the t(11;14) abnormality – one in t(11;14) patients generally (abstract #8592), and another in t(11;14) patients who undergo stem cell transplantation within a year of their myeloma diagnosis (abstract #8583).
Transplant Timing & Consolidation Therapy
Finally, there will be presentations with new data related to two important topics in the treatment of multiple myeloma: the timing of stem cell transplantation for newly diagnosed myeloma patients, and the role of post-transplantation consolidation and/or maintenance therapy.
One presentation, for example, will report results of a randomized Phase 3 trial comparing two treatment regimens for newly diagnosed myeloma patients: a regimen that does not include stem cell transplantation, and a regimen that does. The researchers report that the two approaches are essentially equivalent in terms of survival outcomes (abstract #8530).
Another presentation summarizes results of two Phase 3 trials that tested whether there is any benefit to post-transplant consolidation therapy with Velcade. The researchers find that consolidation therapy improved progression-free survival, but did not have a noticeable effect on overall survival (abstract #8511).
Organization Of The Meeting
Research findings presented at ASCO and other scientific meetings are generally communicated in either oral presentations or poster summaries.
Oral presentations are usually given for research that is considered particularly important, either because the subject itself is important, or because the results are based on substantial amounts of evidence (for example, a sizable clinical trial).
Poster research summaries are made available during specific “poster sessions,” when researchers display summaries of their studies on posters in a large exhibition hall.
Compared to the research summarized during oral presentations, the findings in poster summaries generally are in earlier stages of development and may involve only laboratory research or clinical trials with just a small number of patients.
Abstracts for most ASCO presentations are now available, and The Beacon has put together four useful lists of all myeloma-related ASCO presentations: one list for oral presentations, a second list for poster presentations, a third for education session presentations, and a third for "eAbstracts." The entire database of ASCO 2015 meeting abstracts also can be searched at this page at the ASCO website.
Please note that the results in some abstracts are preliminary and will be updated at the meeting. In addition, there also will be an education session at the meeting on Tuesday, June 2, about personalized therapy in multiple myeloma.
Related Articles:
- bb2121 Continues To Impress As Potential New Multiple Myeloma Therapy (ASCO 2018)
- U.S. FDA Okays First Clinical Trial Of An Allogeneic CAR T-Cell Therapy For Multiple Myeloma
- ASCO 2018 Update – Expert Perspectives On The Key Multiple Myeloma-Related Oral Presentations
- Nelfinavir-Velcade Combination Very Active In Advanced, Velcade-Resistant Multiple Myeloma
- Once-Weekly High-Dose Kyprolis Yields Deeper Responses And Longer Remissions Than Twice-Weekly Kyprolis (ASCO & EHA 2018)
Thanks very much Beacon staff for this presentation of the Myeloma studies being presented at ASCO 2015. I like the list at the top right corner of this page dividing them into oral presentations, poster presentations and e-abstracts. I saw an e-abstract from a Cdn. study about double transplants, and also the Car-T study is of interest too! This listing is a really good service for us readers! One can always be learning more about myeloma and its treatments.
I am eager to hear about the Car-T study. Has that presentation been made as of yet?
Get new Myeloma Beacon articles by email.