At this year’s American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting, December 6 through 9 in Orlando, Florida, over 8,200 abstracts on classical and malignant hematology will be presented. Friday, December 5 features “ASH-a-Palooza,” open only to trainees, and includes TED Talk-like ASH Talks, micro-learning sessions, and mentoring sessions. Friday’s program also includes scientific workshops and non-accredited, sponsored satellite symposia.
The scientific workshops have a session on disease severity scoring and clinical trial endpoints beyond vaso-occlusive pain in sickle cell disease (SCD). Currently, the lack of consensus on how to classify disease severity in SCD has hindered progress in the field. There are also workshops on aging and hematology, host factors in cell and gene therapy, myeloid development, integrating functional and genomic precision medicine for hematologic malignancies, and the interplay between coagulation and malignancy, among others.
The plenary session will include presentations on: 1) results from the randomized CLL17 trial comparing fixed-duration vs continuous targeted treatment for previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia; 2) outcomes of pregnancies in patients with SCD treated with hydroxyurea (escort-HU cohort studies); 3) Sasp (senescence-associated secretory phenotype)-driven immune evasion defining a novel African ancestry-associated DLBCL (diffuse large B cell lymphoma) subtype with distinctive molecular and immune vulnerabilities; 4) CDK4/6 inhibition mitigating chemotherapy-induced expansion of TP53-mutant clonal hematopoiesis; 5) deciphering the dilemma: intravenous iron use in iron deficiency anemia during acute infections; and 6) results from PARADIGM: a phase 2 randomized multi-center study comparing azacytidine and venetoclax to conventional induction chemotherapy for newly diagnosed fit adults with acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
The annual ASH-EHA Joint Symposium topic is on menin inhibitors as novel targeted agents for treatment of AML. The presidential symposium will discuss clonal hematopoiesis and the path to myeloid malignancy.
There will be two ASH-FDA Joint Symposia on newly approved therapies. These sessions feature drugs recently approved to treat hematologic disorders. FDA product reviewers will discuss safety and efficacy from clinical trials and toxicity studies, and clinicians will present their perspectives on the use of these products in real-world settings. The sessions will conclude with questions from the audience. The specific agents to be discussed have not been anno
As usual, there will be multiple scientific program sessions and education sessions on basic and translational research topics. Scientific spotlight sessions will focus on specialized topics currently addressed om the general annual meeting program, eg, specific treatment guidelines.
There are three poster sessions, with focused poster walks, oral poster presentations of high-scoring abstracts, and discussions at receptions for those attending the meeting in person. Short audio narrations accompanying short Power Point presentations and “Contact the Author” buttons on each poster presentation will be available on the virtual event platform for participants to submit questions directly to poster authors.
The late-breaking abstract topics will be revealed on November 24th.
Dr. Lederman has no conflicts of interest to report.
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