So my name is Douglas Tremblay from Mount Sinai, New York, and I'm presenting an abstract at this ASH on behalf of the ECOG Leukemia Committee that really leverages the data from ECOG acute myeloid leukemia trials to ask a very specific question.
So our abstract is entitled nadir biopsies do not predict outcomes. And patients were treated with intensive therapy with acute myeloid leukemia.
And what we aim to do in this abstract is look at patients who at nadir biopsy or day 14 biopsy, which is very commonly performed, and they receive re induction therapy because of residual disease.
Do any characteristics in the bone marrow biopsy predict response or survival or disease free survival in the future?
And our hypothesis was going that if from baseline to this nadir point, if you have a significant reduction in the amount of leukemia you have, that could be a sign that this is someone who is going to go on to with another cycle of treatment, get into a response and have a longer survival.
So what we did is we looked at about 233 patients who had residual disease at this nadir biopsy point. And then we asked the question, what are the changes here and how that associates.
And what we found is that even in people who have, no reduction in the amount of leukemia at this interim biopsy, there is still no association between response rates, survival or disease free survival.
And we looked at this in many different ways, looking at different characteristics, trying to understand is there any predictive capabilities from this nadir biopsy and looking at the characteristics of it? And we looked at it in so many different ways that it will be detailed in the presentation. But none of these showed any significant difference.
So I think what this really means, particularly for patients, is that many times at this first bone marrow biopsy, after receiving chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia, it can be discouraging if there is no if there's still leukemia there or if there's not much change. But what our analysis really suggests is that more chemotherapy might actually reverse that situation and might get people into a response and allow them to survive longer.
Now there's a lot of limitations to our analysis. We don't have a lot of complicated mutational information. We weren't able to adjust for a lot of things that could impact the outcomes of patients with acute myeloid leukemia, but our analysis does still hold a lot of information that you shouldn't give up on more intensive chemotherapy a second cycle if there is still presence of disease. And it did not change at this day 14 or nadir biopsy.
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HealthTree • December 25, 2025