In the Lancet Oncology, Amrita Krishnan at the City of Hope Cancer Center in Los Angeles and her colleagues report their assessment of the effectiveness of allogeneic hemopoietic stem-cell transplants, or HSCT, with non-myeloablative conditioning after autologous HSCT versus tandem autologous HSCT in 710 multiple myeloma patients. The researchers found that "non-myeloablative allogeneic HSCT after autologous HSCT is not more effective than tandem autologous HSCT for patients with standard-risk multiple myeloma," they report.
Medical College of Wisconsin's Mary Eapen led a team of researchers who studied whether matching at HLA C — in addition to typing at HLA A and B and HLA DRB1 — is needed for unrelated umbilical-cord blood transplants. As they report in the Lancet Oncology, the researchers found that the "present strategy for umbilical-cord blood unit selection should be reassessed; matching at HLA C for units that are matched at HLA A, B, or DRB1 or in the presence of a single locus mismatch at HLA A, B, or DRB1 should be included to minimise mortality risks."
Finally, a team led by Anas Younes at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reports findings from an open-label, single-arm phase 2 trial, which show that mocetinostat "has promising single-agent clinical activity with manageable toxicity in patients with relapsed classical Hodgkin's lymphoma."