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CURE’s leukemia page is a go-to resource for oncology news and updates in the world of leukemia Here, readers will find cancer articles, videos, podcasts, and more with expert insight into the latest treatments and research in leukemia.

Last week we saw some FDA approvals come through, as well as research that explored the psychosocial outcomes of individuals who survived pediatric rhabdosarcoma. And finally, we’ll discuss another cancer vaccine clinical trial that got the green light from the Food and Drug Administration.

FDA Approved Besponsa for Children With Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

The first FDA approval of last week was one in the pediatric cancer space. The agency approved Besponsa for children who are at least 1 year old and have relapsed or refractory CD22-positive precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia., also known as ALL.

The approval is coming after findings from a single-arm study involving 53 children. Of which, 22 — that’s 42% — achieved a complete response from the therapy, with the median duration of complete response being 8.2 months. Additionally, the majority of patients who achieved a complete response also had minimal residual disease negativity, which indicates that there were 5% or less blasts found in the bone marrow and no cancer cells detected in the blood.

Having a new treatment option for children with ALL is particularly exciting, as ALL is one of the most common pediatric cancers, according to the American Cancer Society.

FDA Approves Opdivo Plus Chemo for Unresectable or Metastatic Bladder Cancer

Last week, the FDA also approved an immunotherapy/chemotherapy regimen for certain patients with bladder cancer. Specifically, the agency OKed Opdivo plus cisplatin and gemcitabine for the frontline treatment of adults with unresectable or metastatic urothelial carcinoma.

This approval was backed by findings from the CheckMate-901 trial, which showed that the Opdivo-chemotherapy regimen improved overall survival (which is the time patients live before death of any cause) and progression-free survival (which is the time patients live without their disease worsening) compared to those who did not receive Opdivo. The median overall survival was 21.7 months for those who received Opdivo compared to 18.9 months for those who did not, while progression-free survival was 7.9 and 7.6 months, respectively.

FDA Approves Brukinsa, Gazyva Combo for Relapsed, Refractory Follicular Lymphoma

Last week, the Food and Drug Administration also approved Brukinsa plus Gazyva for patients with relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma after findings from the ROSEWOOD trial showed that not only did more patients respond to the two-drug treatment compared to Gazyva alone, but also at a median follow-up of 19 months, more patients were still responding compared to the Gazvya arm as well.

Rhabdomyosarcoma Survivors May Have Poor Psychological Outcomes

, found that survivors of rhabdomyosarcoma — which is a rare cancer affecting soft tissues — may face increased risk of psychological challenges, especially if they were exposed to previous radiation therapy or have a history of smoking.

Researchers examined neurocognitive impairment, emotional distress and health-related quality of life in survivors compared to their siblings. Results showed higher rates of issues like memory impairment and emotional distress among survivors, with smoking linked to poorer outcomes. The CURE® team spoke with study author, Ellen van der Plas on the findings. Here is what she had to say.

Ovarian Cancer Vaccine Trial Gets FDA Clearance to Proceed

The FDA has given the green light for a clinical trial of a vaccine designed to treat advanced ovarian cancer. Known as Innocell, this personalized therapy utilizes cells from the patient's own tumor which is inactivated via riboflavin and UV light. The drug is being manufactured at City of Hope in Los Angeles, and the trial aims to assess the vaccine's safety and effectiveness in stimulating immune response.

This is one of the many cancer vaccines being explored and developed in the oncology space. Check back on prior CURE® coverage for updates on vaccines to treat breast, lung, skin and other cancers.

For more news on cancer updates, research and education, don’t forget to 

Last week we saw some FDA approvals come through, as well as research that explored the psychosocial outcomes of individuals who survived pediatric rhabdosarcoma. 

Oncology Approvals, Psychological Outcomes for Survivors and an Ovarian Cancer Vaccine

Blood cancer treatments — and one treatment type, in particular — were the point of much discussion last week. The FDA said that it is investigating instances of secondary malignancies in patients with blood cancers treated with CAR-T cell therapy. Also, the drug manufacturer for a novel CAR-T cell therapy submitted an application to introduce the treatment into the United States market.

Blood cancers will continue to be a hot topic this week, as later in the week we’ll be covering the American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting. And before that, we’ll also be covering the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

Chance or CAR-T: Expert Weighs in on FDA Investigation

One of the biggest headlines in the cancer space last week was that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that they are investigating instances of T-cell malignancies — such as CAR-positive lymphoma — occurring in patients with blood cancers that were treated with CAR-T cell therapy.

CAR-T cell therapy is a newer type of blood cancer treatment that involves extracting patients’ blood and reengineering their immune T cells to find and fight cancer. Those new T cells are then multiplied and infused back into the patient. Since the first CAR-T cell product was approved in 2017, this treatment modality has drastically improved outcomes for patients with certain types of blood cancers.

It’s worth mentioning that the FDA’s Nov. 28 report about T-cell malignancies did not definitively say that CAR-T cell therapies are directly causing secondary diseases. They also did not mention the frequency at which these T-cell malignancies are occurring. I spoke with Dr. John Lister, who said that perhaps it’s the manufacturing process that could be the root cause, but perhaps it is also just chance, as research has shown that many patients with cancer hold a higher risk of developing a second cancer. For now, we’re just going to have to wait and see what further data tells us.

FDA Biologics License Application Filed for Obe-Cel for Adult R/R B-ALL

Also in CAR-T cell therapy news, last week a pharmaceutical company submitted a Biologics License Application to the FDA for their CAR-T cell therapy, obe-cel to be used for patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

When a pharmaceutical company files a Biologics License Application to the FDA, they’re essentially asking the agency to allow them to bring the drug to the market. The company submitting the drug must provide the FDA with multiple pieces of information, including findings from preclinical and clinical studies showing that the drug is safe.

In this instance, the pharmaceutical company cited data from the FELIX study, from which, early data showed that 76% if patients responded to the therapy, including 54.3% who had a complete response, meaning that their disease essentially disappeared. Now, updated findings from the trial will be presented at the upcoming ASH Annual Meeting. 

From FDA concerns to a potential new drug, CAR-T cell therapies were dominating oncology headlines last week. 

Top Headlines on CAR-T Cell Therapy

For Andrew McMahon, a singer-songwriter and cancer survivor, the act of forgetting an anniversary was a good thing.

Alongside his band, Andrew McMahon and the Wilderness, he was set to play the inaugural Adjacent festival on the beach in Atlantic City, New Jersey on May 27, part of a daily lineup that included Paramore, Jimmy Eat World and Bleachers.

The date of the festival coincided with a landmark moment in his cancer journey, which began in 2005. Before the end of a tour as part of Jack’s Mannequin, he received a diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), for which he eventually underwent treatment with chemotherapy, radiation and a stem cell transplant.

“About an hour and a half before the show, I'm working on the setlist,” McMahon told CURE®

 “And every day, I do the setlist and then at the top of the setlist I put the city and the date. And I asked somebody, like, ‘What's the date today?’ And they said, ‘It's the 27th,’ then as I'm typing the date, I realize, ‘Oh, that's the anniversary of when I was put in the hospital.’

“And we were in Atlantic City, and I had been between New Jersey and New York when I did the initial blood work that ended up leading to my hospitalization and eventually my diagnosis. Historically, that has been a very fraught anniversary for me. In the early years … even when I wouldn't realize the anniversary was coming up that weekend, inevitably, I was a mess. … So, being in a place now where I can actually forget those anniversaries, like they can almost pass me by and there's no trigger there, I'm on a healthy footing and that's pretty miraculous.”

McMahon founded the Dear Jack Foundation in 2006. The organization supports young adult cancer patients and survivors “through programs that provide support and community to a demographic far too often forgotten,” according to the Dear Jack Foundation website.

In this episode of the “Cancer Horizons” podcast, McMahon speaks with CURE®about life nearly 20 years after receiving his cancer diagnosis, shares the advice he has for patients who have recently received a diagnosis of their own and discusses his newfound love of surfing.

“The beauty of surfing is that you just have to you take what you get, right? A lot of it is about learning how to understand what the natural environment around you is doing and then using that to get yourself into just about the greatest feeling that you can have on Earth, which is riding a wave,” McMahon said. “And so, I think it's been very good for me in the sense that it has really hammered home how valuable and how important it is to commune with the natural world.

“And it's also one of just the very few spaces I can think of where whatever's happening in my life and whatever's going on in my business, or things that I might be worried about or afraid of, or whatever, I just don't carry those things into the water with me. And it's not really a conscious thing. It's just once I'm there, you're just present. And I definitely, at this stage of my life — I've always been pretty good about keeping the phone at bay, and I'm not a huge social media guy, I'm not so plugged in, but I'm way more plugged in than I have ever been in my life — having a space where nobody can reach me and I can just do something that so akin to just play playing, I think as adults we don't play as much as we ought to is really good for the brain and I've found a lot of peace in the water for sure.”

Dear Jack Foundation

"I’m on a healthy footing, and that’s pretty miraculous," said singer-songwriter Andrew McMahon, an acute lymphoblastic leukemia survivor and founder of the Dear Jack Foundation.

Musician Andrew McMahon on Setlists, Surfing and Surviving Cancer

Before her son was diagnosed with leukemia, Janice Post-White’s career as a cancer nurse was much more straightforward. But after enduring the emotional journey of navigating her son’s cancer treatments, her research interests and passions shifted.

In this episode of the “Cancer Horizons” podcast, Post-White spoke with CURE® and Oncology Nursing News® about what it was like to approach her son’s cancer through a unique lens, and how it led her to writing a book about the journey, titled “Standing at Water’s Edge.”

“I went into nursing because I wanted to feel connected, and I wanted to make a difference. But it's what I learned from families who survive, not just physically but emotionally, and get through,” Post-White said. “I learn from other people's strengths. And if they can do it, you can do it.”

On this episode of the “Cancer Horizons” podcast, a cancer nurse explains how her son’s leukemia diagnosis transformed her work, her research and her outlook on life.

Uncharted Territory: How a Cancer Nurse Navigated Her Child’s Leukemia Diagnosis

 with Down syndrome had an increased mortality risk later in life when compared with survivors without Down syndrome or those with Down syndrome who did not ever have leukemia.

In this episode of the “Cancer Horizons” podcast, expert Dr. Ana Xavier, an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at The University of Alabama at Birmingham Heersink School of Medicine, provided some more insight on these findings as well as why people with Down syndrome may be at higher risk for leukemia.

“(Patients with) Down syndrome … do have a high risk of developing leukemia than non-Down syndrome patients, especially in pediatric age,” Xavier said in an interview with CURE®. “But what's interesting, though, is that we don't have data, or we still don't have enough data, that we can understand how those patients do long term. And when we say long term, we’re talking about not five years after completion of therapy, we're talking about decades after completion of therapy — 10, 20, 30, 40 years after. You can imagine a little kid, age four, with Down syndrome — what can we tell their family what's going to happen when he or she is at 40 or 50 years of age?”

In this episode of the “Cancer Horizons” podcast, an expert unpacks cancer risks for individuals with Down syndrome and analyzes the results of a recent study about mortality risks for childhood survivors later in life.

Expert Explores the Relationship Between Down Syndrome and Leukemia

With recent research demonstrating that antibodies were not detected in some patients with B-cell blood cancers after receiving two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, many people have questions. Will a third dose help these patients? Should they bother with the vaccine? How do their current cancer treatments impact the vaccine’s effectiveness?

Dr. Larry Saltzman, the executive research director at the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, answered these questions and more in this episode of the “Cancer Horizons” podcast.

“So there's two swings of the pendulum, those who will respond in a global, very good way – not to worry, essentially, and those (who) will not respond due to the treatments that they're on,” Saltzman said.

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society

An expert from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society breaks down the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine in patients with blood cancers on this episode of the “Cancer Horizons” podcast.

What Patients With Blood Cancers Need to Know About COVID-19, Booster Shots and More

Dr. Curtis Mack is a radiation oncologist with a special level of empathy for his patients because he understands what it’s like to be on the other side of a hospital bed. In 2013, he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which interrupted his life in many ways.

In this episode of the “CURE® Talks Cancer” podcast, Mack explains what it was like to undergo treatment and how his cancer experience allows him to understand his patients on a deeper level.

“I feel like I was a pretty empathetic guy before,” Mack said. “But there's no way you can't be more empathetic. When I tell patients when we’re talking about stuff, and I'm going to radiate this or that or whatever, I'm like ‘Yeah I had that radiated. And I had 

 radiated.’ Basically, I had everything radiated because they radiate head to toe. And when I talk to my head and neck patients – and head neck cancer treatment is really tough on folks, for swallowing and drinking and eating and so forth, and needing feeding tubes and IV hydration and all that stuff – and it's like, you know, I can totally relate to that.”

Dr. Curtis Mack shares the story of his cancer diagnosis and treatment journey in this episode of the “CURE® Talks Cancer” podcast. The oncologist describes the way it impacted his patient care.

The Oncologist Who Became a Cancer Survivor

In 1998, Mel Mann received his first dose of Gleevec (imatinib) in a clinical trial to treat his leukemia, which was then determined to be terminal. In honor of 20 years since Gleevec’s FDA approval, he shared his story on the “CURE® Talks Cancer” podcast.

“That three years turned into 26 years, and it's going to be 27 years, it's getting close to that time,” Mann said. “My daughter, she was five, and she grew up to be a doctor herself. I celebrated 36 years of marriage, so 26 extra years with my wife. It's really a lifesaver. It's a miracle drug, but they do happen. And that's how they happen...through research, and just people getting on clinical trials.”

In this episode of the “CURE® Talks Cancer” podcast Mel Mann discusses his participation in the clinical trial for Gleevec and how it changed the trajectory of his life.

Gleevec Turned the Clock on a Late-Stage Leukemia Diagnosis

Joey Renick received his first cancer diagnosis at age 3. By the time he was 22, he was undergoing treatment for his third diagnosis of the same disease, acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). After many rounds of chemotherapy and radiation and a bone marrow transplant, he is now in remission.

In this episode of the “CURE® Talks Cancer” podcast, Renick shares his cancer journey and discusses the 100-mile bike ride he completed last year for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

“Five years ago, if you would have said ‘You're gonna do a 100-mile bike ride in a single day,’ I would have probably laughed at you," said Renick. "It was extremely emotional, and we ended we actually ended our ride at the hospital that I did all my treatment at.”

In this episode of the “CURE® Talks Cancer” podcast, Joey Renick opens up about his cancer journey and explains how he went on to bike 100 miles for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Three-Time Cancer Survivor Bikes 100 Miles for a Cause

At the age of 3, Bishoy Tadros received a diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia and immigrated to the United States with him family to receive treatment.

After moving to Los Angeles and then to Long Island, New York, Tadros underwent varios aggressive surgeries and entered remission on his 13th birthday.

However, it wasn’t until 2017 that he was inspired to share his story. He pushed away from his comfort zone, entering to run the New York City Marathon and raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society — all of which helped him to realize the power of his personal story.

Tadros wrote a memoir, titled “Break Barriers,” to help individuals learn that setbacks are never instilled to define oneself, and that patience, perspective and purpose are key.

In this episode of the “CURE Talks Cancer” podcast, we spoke with Bishoy Tadros, who went on to break barriers after he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia at the age of 3 and immigrated to the United States from Egypt to receive treatment.

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