Dr Ibrahim Aldoss talks to ecancer about his talk at ASH 2021: Outcomes of allogeneic haematopoietic cell transplantation in adults with Ph-like ALL.

He begins by explaining some off the background to the study, stating that Ph-like ALL is a high risk leukaemia of B-cell ALL, that tends to be chemorefractory, with a high risk of induction failure, a high relapse rate and low overall survival.

Dr Aldoss then goes on to explain that 125 adult patients with B-cell ALL were included in the analysis, and it was found that 66 of them had Ph-like ALL. He says when characteristics of Ph-like ALL are compared with Non-Ph-like ALL it was found that Ph-like patients tend to be younger, more frequently hispanic, less likely to have high-risk cytogenetics, and more frequently used paediatric-inspired regimens.

He concludes by saying they couldn't address the benefit of transplant in patients who achieved early MRD response with chemotherapy, so believes there should be a study looking at outcomes of transplant versus non-transplant in Ph-like ALL patients who achieve an MRD negative response with moderate regimens of chemotherapy, to see if transplant is needed for these patients, or not.