ALBERT

Description: The Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network conducted 2 parallel multicenter phase 2 trials for individuals with leukemia or lymphoma and no suitable related donor. Reduced intensity conditioning (RIC) was used with either unrelated double umbilical cord blood (dUCB) or HLA-haploidentical related donor bone marrow (Haplo-marrow) transplantation. For both trials, the transplantation conditioning regimen incorporated cyclophosphamide, fludarabine, and 200 cGy of total body irradiation. The 1-year probabilities of overall and progression-free survival were 54% and 46%, respectively, after dUCB transplantation (n = 50) and 62% and 48%, respectively, after Haplo-marrow transplantation (n = 50). The day +56 cumulative incidence of neutrophil recovery was 94% after dUCB and 96% after Haplo-marrow transplantation. The 100-day cumulative incidence of grade II-IV acute GVHD was 40% after dUCB and 32% after Haplo-marrow transplantation. The 1-year cumulative incidences of nonrelapse mortality and relapse after dUCB transplantation were 24% and 31%, respectively, with corresponding results of 7% and 45%, respectively, after Haplo-marrow transplantation. These multicenter studies confirm the utility of dUCB and Haplo-marrow as alternative donor sources and set the stage for a multicenter randomized clinical trial to assess the relative efficacy of these 2 strategies. The trials are registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov under NCT00864227 (BMT CTN 0604) and NCT00849147 (BMT CTN 0603).

Description: Only 30% of patients who require an allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplant will have an HLA-matched sibling donor. A search for an unrelated donor will be undertaken for patients without a matched family donor. However, many patients, particularly patients of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, may not be able to rapidly identify a suitably matched unrelated donor. Three alternative graft sources, umbilical cord blood (UCB), haploidentical (haplo)–related donor, and mismatched unrelated donor (MMUD) are available. UCB is associated with decreased GVHD, but hematologic recovery and immune reconstitution are slow. Haplo-HCT is characterized by donor availability for transplantation and after transplantation adoptive cellular immunotherapy but may be complicated by a high risk of graft failure and relapse. A MMUD transplant may also be an option, but GVHD may be of greater concern. Phase 2 studies have documented advances in HLA typing, GVHD prophylaxis, and infection prevention, which have improved survival. The same patient evaluated in different transplant centers may be offered MMUD, UCB, or haplo-HCT depending on center preference. In this review, we discuss the rationale for donor choice and the need of phase 3 studies to help answer this important question.

Description: Unlike the significant advances seen with intensive chemotherapy for pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) over the last two decades, long-term outcomes among patients over age 50 remain poor, with median survival less than one year. This contrast has been attributed to high-risk chromosomal features, decreased compliance with and tolerance of effective therapies, and exposure to less intensive multi-agent regimens among adults with ALL. In recent years, more intensive chemotherapeutic paradigms, derived from pediatric protocols, have been studied in adult ALL. The purpose of the current study was to determine the efficacy of an intensified multi-agent approach, derived from a completed DFCI consortium pediatric regimen used in younger adults, in an older (age 〉50) population of patients with ALL. For this study, modifications of the pediatric regimen included incorporation of clofarabine in consolidation, adjustment to dose and scheduling of PEG asparaginase and steroids, as well as inclusion of stem cell transplant (SCT) for eligible patients. The primary endpoint was survival rate at 1 year, with the goal of improving from the 33% historical control to 53%. Adults, aged 51-75 years, with newly diagnosed ALL or lymphoblastic lymphoma, were eligible. During induction, patients received multi-agent chemotherapy with vincristine, prednisone, doxorubicin, and PEG asparaginase. Imatinib was instituted if cytogenetics confirmed the presence of the Philadelphia chromosome. Patients received prophylactic intrathecal therapy with induction, and those with CNS involvement underwent additional IT therapy. Prednisone was administered for 21 days for those aged less than 60 and for 7 days for those aged 60 and above. Following induction, cycle one of consolidation included treatment with clofarabine, prednisone, and PEG asparaginase. After induction and first consolidation course, eligible patients proceeded to allogeneic SCT. Patients without matched sibling donors could receive unrelated donor or cord blood transplants. While those eligible under age 60 could undergo ablative conditioning regimens, those 60 and older received reduced intensity regimens. Those not eligible for SCT, went on to receive CNS, consolidation and continuation phases of treatment, as per protocol, which incorporated treatment with cycles of vincristine, doxorubicin, 6-mercaptopurine, and dexamethasone. PEG asparaginase was incorporated into the induction, consolidation I, CNS phase, and consolidation II phases of therapy. As of the most current analysis, 30 patients have been enrolled. A total of 19 of 29 evaluable patients (66%) have achieved a complete remission (CR). Three patients were refractory to induction therapy, four discontinued treatment during induction due to toxicity, of which three died, and nine patients have experienced relapse following remission. Nine patients have undergone SCT. A total of 15 patients have died on study out of 27 evaluated, and the overall survival, calculated by the method of Kaplan and Meier, at one year was 62% [95% CI, 41%-77%] (Figure 1), while disease-free survival for the 18 patients who achieved a CR following induction therapy at one year was 77% [95% CI, 49%-90%]. In total, for evaluable patients with at least one year of follow-up, the proportion surviving at one year was 61% [two-sided 80% CI, 47-75%] (16/26), significantly higher than the historical rate (33% used for this analysis, one-sided 90% exact CI) among such patients. Overall survival is also shown for Ph+ and Ph- groups (Figure 2). The most common grade 3/4 toxicities included transaminitis and hyperbilirubinemia, cytopenias, hypophosphatemia, hyperglycemia, and neutropenic fever. The major toxicity of liver injury, thought related to PEG asparaginase, prompted an amendment to the protocol to reduce the dose. Additionally, PEG asparaginase administration was limited to only those with Philadelphia chromosome-negative disease, to decrease risk of severe hepatotoxcity in patients receiving concurrent imatinib and PEG asparaginase. These data suggest that intensive multi-agent chemotherapy is tolerable in older patients with ALL, and can result in improved outcomes when compared to historical data. Additional study of similarly intensive regimens, incorporating novel therapies and alternative formulations of asparaginase, are warranted in older populations of ALL. Disclosures Fathi: Seattle Genetics: Research Funding; Seattle Genetics: Advisory Board, Advisory Board Other. Stone:Novartis: Research Funding.

Description: Background: Many older adults (≥60) with AML have a poor prognosis and spend a high portion of their life from diagnosis until death in the hospital. Using a large cohort, we examined the reasons for hospitalizations and identified those which are potentially avoidable. Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of 329 consecutive patients (≥60) diagnosed with AML between 5/1/2005 and 12/31/2011 at two major tertiary care hospitals to examine the reasons for hospitalizations during treatment. Practicing physicians used a consensus-driven medical record review process to identify primary reason for each hospitalization and categorize it as "potentially avoidable" or "not avoidable" based on a novel adaptation of the Graham's criteria for potentially avoidable hospital admissions. We compared the rate of potentially avoidable hospitalizations between older patients receiving intensive chemotherapy (n=197) versus non-intensive chemotherapy (n=132) using multivariate logistic regression analysis controlling for age, gender, marital status, disease risk, comorbidities, and the receipt of stem cell transplantation. Results: We evaluated 1040 hospitalizations after the diagnosis of AML in 329 unique patients. The median age was 69.9 years [range 60-90] and the median number of hospitalizations was 4.2 [range 0-18]. 33.1% (109/329) of patients underwent stem cell transplantation. The most common primary reasons for hospitalizations were: fever/infection (38.0%), planned hospitalizations for chemotherapy or transplantation (37.7%), and uncontrolled symptoms (9.8%). We identified 180/1040 hospitalizations (17.4%) as potentially avoidable; among these, 47.8% were due to premature hospital discharge, 18.9% could have been managed in the outpatient setting, and 16.1% were due to failure of timely outpatient follow-up. Potentially avoidable hospitalizations represented 12.9% (76/589) and 23.1% (10/451) of hospitalizations among patients who received intensive chemotherapy and non-intensive chemotherapy, respectively. In multivariate logistic regression analysis, the receipt of non-intensive chemotherapy was associated with higher risk of potentially avoidable hospitalization [OR 2.01, 95% CI 1.27-3.20, P = 0.003]. Conclusions: Although many hospitalizations in older patients with AML are unavoidable and driven by the illness course and its treatment, a substantial proportion are potentially avoidable. Patients with AML undergoing non-intensive chemotherapy are at higher risk of having potentially avoidable hospitalization. Future interventions to reduce health care utilization in this population are needed, especially among those who are treated with non-intensive chemotherapy. Disclosures Steensma: Incyte: Consultancy; Amgen: Consultancy; Celgene: Consultancy; Onconova: Consultancy. LeBlanc:Boehringer Ingelheim: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Epi-Q: Consultancy; Flatiron: Consultancy; Helsinn Therapeutics: Honoraria, Research Funding. Fathi:Agios Pharmaceuticals: Other: Advisory Board participation; Merck: Other: Advisory Board participation; Seattle Genetics: Other: Advisory Board participation, Research Funding. DeAngelo:Amgen: Consultancy; Celgene: Consultancy; Pfizer: Consultancy; Incyte: Consultancy; Novartis: Consultancy; Ariad: Consultancy; Agios: Consultancy; Bristol Myers Squibb: Consultancy. Stone:Merck: Consultancy; Sunesis: Consultancy, Other: DSMB for clinical trial; Novartis: Research Funding; Agios: Consultancy; Amgen: Consultancy; Abbvie: Consultancy; Celgene: Consultancy; Karyopharm: Consultancy; Roche/Genetech: Consultancy; AROG: Consultancy; Pfizer: Consultancy; Juno: Consultancy; Celator: Consultancy. Chen:Bayer: Consultancy, Research Funding.

Description: Abstract 4552 Background: Myeloablative total body irradiation (TBI) may be incorporated in the condition regimen prior to hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) for a variety of hematologic malignancies. Recent studies suggest improved patient tolerance and similar overall outcomes when TBI is administered prior to chemotherapy versus after systemic therapy. Patients and Methods: We retrospectively reviewed outcomes of adult patients (〉18yrs old) who received myeloablative TBI as part of their conditioning regimen at the Massachusetts General Hospital between 1993 and 2012. All patients received TBI prior to chemotherapy; a median dose 13 Gy (range 12–16 Gy) was delivered. Patient characteristics including presenting disease, treatment course, treatment outcome and late-effects of therapy were analyzed. Results: The study cohort consisted of 116 patients; 55 patients received TBI for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), 25 for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), 16 for acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), 5 for chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), 9 for Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), and 6 for other hematologic disease including MDS, MM, and CLL. Ten patients died of transplant-related mortality. Sixty-three patients underwent allogeneic HCT with a matched-related donor, 53 patients underwent autologous HCT, 5 patients had a tandem HCT, and the remaining patients were divided evenly among umbilical cord, haploidentical, and matched unrelated donor HCT. Twice daily TBI was administered for most patients; 56 cases received TBI three times daily. Cyclophosphamide + TBI (Cy/TBI) was the most commonly used regimen (n=100). At the time of this report, 56 patients were still alive, with a median followup of 84.7 months (range 0.5–220 months). Median survival for all 116 cases was 67 months; stratified by diagnosis: 112 months NHL, 50 months HL, 69 months ALL, 20 months AML, 17 months CML, and 36 months for other malignancies. Overall survival for the entire cohort was 53% (95% CI = 43 to 62%) and 43% (95% CI = 32 to 53%) at 5- and 10-years, respectively. Progression free or relapse-free survival (P/RFS) was 44% (95% CI = 34 to 54%) and 33% (95% CI = 23 to 43%) at 5- and 10-years, respectively. Patients with ALL had the longest P/RFS (69 months) followed by NHL (42 months). Thirteen patients developed second malignancies; 9 patients developed skin cancer, 2 were diagnosed with other solid tumors, and 2 patients had both skin cancer and another malignancy. Endocrine dysfunction such as hypothyroidism and hypogonadism was documented in 11 patients, 23 patients developed late ocular toxicity. Other late toxicities include pulmonary (14 patients), cardiac (4 patients), and 11 cases of neuropathy. None of these late toxicities were seen in patients with less than 2.5 years of survivorship after transplant. Conclusion: Similar to other reports, our results show that conditioning regimens that include the use of TBI prior to high-dose chemotherapy have OS and P/RFS that are comparable to other conditioning regimens. Appropriate screening for late toxicities of therapy should begin in the 3rd year of survivorship. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Description: Abstract 1216 Poster Board I-238 Background: PD-1 (Program Death-1), an immune inhibitory receptor and its ligands PD-L1 and PD-L2, participate in peripheral tolerance and play a key role in immune suppression and evasion mechanisms in cancer and chronic infectious diseases. PD-1 inhibits activation signals and functions as a pro-apoptotic receptor in effector lymphocytes, and consequently regulates the extent and duration of specific adaptive and innate immune responses. CT-011, a humanized antibody, blocks the function of PD-1, resulting in increased activities of T and NK cells in vitro and in enhanced tumor immunity in experimental tumor models. At the molecular level, the antibody enhances PI3K-mediated survival and trafficking signals, attenuates cell death in effector/memory (CD4+CD45RO+) cells, and enhances trafficking in response to Stromal Cell-derived Factor-1 (SDF-1). We hypothesized that CT-011 would enhance effector/memory cells in patients with DLBCL after AuSCT and delay recurrence. Methods: We treated 41 patients (pts) with DLBCL from 30-90 days after AuSCT with CT-011 and now report data on effector/memory and memory lymphocytes in the first 30 pts. CT-011 was given at a dose of 1.5mg/kg for 3 doses, 6 weeks apart. The primary endpoint was to determine the proportion of patients who have not relapsed or died within 18 months following autologous PBSCT, and it is too early for that analysis. Our secondary endpoint was to measure the number of effector /memory and memory lymphocytes before and after treatment, and those data are the subject of this report. Results: Flow cytometry analyses (Table) on pre (baseline: BL) and post-treatment blood samples from the first 30 pts enrolled show elevated levels of specific effector/memory and memory CD4+ T lymphocytes following treatment with CT-011; the median absolute number (ABS) of effector/memory CD4+CD45RO+CD62L-CCR7- cells was increased by +49% from BL (p

Description: Introduction Umbilical cord blood (UCB) transplantation yields survival comparable to adult stem cell transplantation, but there is significant variability among UCB products, in large part because of differences in processing conditions from collection to cryopreservation at cord banks. While impact of processing conditions on the actual UCB product has been reported, there is a little information regarding impact on patient-level outcomes. We report a retrospective exploratory analysis of processing performed at cord banks prior to freezing of UCB units and the impact on clinical outcomes such as engraftment, cord dominance, transplant-related mortality (TRM) and overall survival (OS) in 133 UCB recipients. Methods All adult recipients of unmanipulated double UCB transplantation (dUCBT) for hematologic malignancy from 2003 to 2011 at the 3 Harvard Cancer Center sites (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center) were included. All UCB units were thawed and washed prior to infusion. Multivariate analyses controlled for prognostic factors including age, malignancy, conditioning intensity, degree of HLA matching, presence of anti-HLA antibodies, order of cord infusion, TNC/kg, and CD34+/kg infused. Time to engraftment and treatment-related mortality were analyzed in the competing risks regression setting and survival was analyzed using proportional hazards models. Results 98 recipients underwent reduced-intensity conditioning, primarily fludarabine, melphalan and anti-thymocyte globulin. 35 underwent myeloablative conditioning, primarily cyclophosphamide and total body irradiation. Of the 48 banks contributing cords to this study, 42% employed simple cryopreservation and 23% employed plasma/volume reduction only, at some point during operation. These 2 methods were considered “RBC replete”. Of the 34 banks sharing their current practices, simple cryopreservation is no longer practiced by any; 12% practice plasma/volume reduction alone. 88% of the banks now employ RBC depletion, of which 67% use hydroxyethyl starch for RBC sedimentation and 67% use automated processing systems. Engraftment – Neutrophil and platelet engraftment were not impacted by RBC depletion, sedimentation with hydroxyethyl starch, automated processing, HLA matching or CD34+/kg dose in multivariate analyses. An anti-HLA antibody against one or more cords (p

Description: Umbilical cord blood (UCB) is an alternative source of hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) for allogeneic HSC transplantation but reconstitution of T cell immunity remains problematic even with double UCB transplantation (dUCBT). This is related to the small T cell numbers of the UCB graft, the naïve nature of these T cells and often the use of ATG as part of the conditioning regimen. Consequently, UCBT recipients are susceptible to viral infections that require intact T cell immunity for their containment. Epstein Barr virus (EBV) is a gammaherpes virus that is transmitted orally. EBV initially replicates in a lytic cycle in the epithelium of the oropharynx and then establishes a latent state in memory B cells. Reactivation of EBV from latent to lytic cycle is mediated by physiologic stress of the memory B cell pool and by defects in antiviral T cell immunity, and can cause aggressive lymphomas known as post transplant lymphoproliferative disorder (PTLD) in immunocompromised hosts. The specific immunological correlates of EBV reactivation in adult UCBT recipients have not been examined. In the present study we attempted to distinguish immune reconstitution profiles in UCBT recipients who developed EBV viremia from those who did not, in order to better understand the immune profile of UCBT recipients who control gammaherpes virus reactivation. Thirty-one patients with hematologic malignancies received dUCBT with melphalan, fludarabine, ATG conditioning and tacrolimus plus sirolimus for GvHD prophylaxis. EBV viral load was determined on a weekly basis after dUCBT. Immunophenotype of peripheral blood lymphocytes, serum cytokine levels and T cell receptor excision circle analysis (TREC) values, were examined prior to and at 1, 2, 3, 6 and 12 months after UCBT and were compared between EBV viremic and non-viremic patients using the Wilcoxon-rank sum test. During the first 12 months after dUCBT, 14 of 31 (45%) patients developed EBV viremia and four (13%) developed PTLD. At one month after dUCBT, patients who developed EBV viremia displayed higher numbers of CD19+ B cell numbers (p=0.04) and CD4+CD25+ T regulatory cells (p=0.03) compared with patients who never became viremic. Surprisingly, development of EBV viremia correlated with increased numbers of CD3+ (p=0.04), CD4+ (p=0.015) and CD8+ (p=0.021) T cells. This finding was counterintuitive, as one might expect better quantitative peripheral T cell reconstitution in patients with recovering immunity and no EBV reactivation. One mechanism of impaired immune reconstitution after UCBT is skewing towards a late effector memory T cell phenotype, a stage in which T cells are incapable of mounting protective immune responses. We examined whether development of EBV viremia was associated with altered naïve versus memory T cell distribution. We determined that patients who developed EBV reactivation had higher numbers of memory cell subsets (CD4+CD45RO+, p=0.0023; CD8+CD45RO+, p=0.019) at two months after dUCBT. Neither development nor control of EBV viremia correlated with TREC recovery, which occurred after the time period of EBV viremia. We were unable to identify EBV-specific T cells in any patient group due to the very low T cell numbers during the time of viremia. However, analysis of repertoire diversity by deep-sequencing on PCR-amplified CDR3 regions of the TCRb gene using the ImmunoSEQ assay showed a more diverse TCR repertoire, as determined by higher entropy (p=0.03) and lower clonality (p=0.03), among patients who did not develop EBV reactivation, compared with those who developed EBV viremia and PTLD. Assessment of serum levels of SCF (a c-kit ligand), IL-7, thrombomodulin, VEGF and angiopoetin-1 showed that patients without EBV viremia had significantly higher levels of SCF (p=0.0001) and IL-7 (p=0.05), at 1 and 2 months after dUCBT, compared with patients who developed EBV reactivation and PTLD. SCF-mediated signaling via c-kit is integral to the homing and longevity of uncommitted hematopoietic stem cells whereas IL-7 is a critical factor for survival and homeostasis of naïve T cells. Together our findings suggest that control of EBV reactivation after dUCBT might be linked to the support of naïve T cell homeostasis, which enables maintenance of a diverse TCR repertoire. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.