Media Release: Next generation of better blood cancer treatments, building on five decades of research
Wednesday 25 October 2023
Pioneers in blood cancer research will meet with peers and early career researchers at the Australasian Leukaemia and Lymphoma Group (ALLG) Scientific Meeting in Sydney 26 and 27 October, to progress latest therapies that are making headway in tackling some of the hardest to treat blood cancers. This work has been built on the ALLG’s five decades of clinical trial research.
The ALLG has contributed to what are now standard treatments in Australia and New Zealand in acute myeloid leukaemia and other conditions through its clinical trials. The Group has transformed treatments for once fatal diseases such as chronic myeloid leukaemia, and revolutionised treatment world-wide for patients with acute promyelocytic leukaemia.
“We are progressing targeted therapies, studying how best to optimise the use of the life-saving, life-changing, enzyme-inhibitors that switch off the activity of the leukaemia,” said Professor Judith Trotman, Chair of ALLG’s Scientific Advisory Committee that provides strategic research direction of the Group’s clinical trial program. “Our trials in development are moving away from the blunderbuss, toxic, immune-suppressive chemotherapy of the past to a chemo-free targeted approach.”
Through ALLG’s international collaborations, the Group’s impact has more than tripled the survival rates for patients with the Hodgkin & Non-Hodgkin lymphomas. “For so many lymphomas, we are curing more patients through adding sophisticated targeted antibody and enzyme inhibitor therapies,” Prof Trotman explained.
“As we cure more patients, we are using functional imaging of lymphoma, PET scanning, to help us adapt our therapies to maximise cure while minimising toxicity, so patients are not just living longer but living better. Our studies of CAR-T cell therapies are designed to harness the patient’s own immune system to control and ultimately cure their lymphoma.”
In ALLG’s latest lymphoma treatment breakthroughs, HD10 trial for advanced-stage Hodgkin lymphoma has shown the “best results ever seen” in young patients from 18 to 60 years of age.
The trial was part of an ALLG international collaboration with the German Hodgkin Study Group HD21 trial. Professor Mark Hertzberg AM, haematologist from the Prince of Wales Hospital (NSW) and long-time ALLG clinical trial leader, is the Chief Investigator of the Australian and New Zealand arm, ALLG HD10 trial.
“The analysis of this study, at just under three and a half years, confirmed that 95 percent of patients remain free of disease recurrence,” Prof Hertzberg said. Researchers identified effective first-line treatments and prevented toxic side effects but maintained the therapeutic effect in eliminating cancer cells. This breakthrough will change how the disease is treated world-wide.
In another lymphoma breakthrough this year, ALLG’s Laboratory Science study LS21 has detected through blood tests which patients were becoming resistant to a new medication they were taking while on a trial for their Mantel Cell Lymphoma. The blood tests enabled researchers to see any changes before they could be detected with scans and before the patient had any symptoms. A first for this rare blood cancer. This research in precision medicine enables more targeted and timely treatment.
Prof Trotman said that for patients with the bone marrow cancer, multiple myeloma, “We also have multiple clever targeted antibody and other enzyme inhibitors, with combination or sequential therapies now doubling the life expectancy of someone diagnosed with myeloma in 2023, extending it by many years.”
Prof Trotman stressed that “Despite delivering much better treatments now for many types of blood cancer, there is ongoing unmet need that the ALLG’s research strategy is targeting to progress better treatments as we aim for cure.
“We are also investing in the next generation of blood cancer trial expertise for Australia through a new Clinical Trial Fellowship program, in partnership with the Haematology Society of Australia and New Zealand (HSANZ).”
Learn more about ALLG, the five decades of impact, and ALLG HSANZ Clinical Trials Fellowship.
