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Report of the Chronic Malignancies Working Party Scientific and Educational Meeting - 24-25 September 2021

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Events
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Chronic Malignancies Working Party (CMWP)
Report written by Dr. Patrick Hayden, Secretary CMWP, Department of Hematology, St. James's Hospital, Dublin, Ireland

Following discussion and feedback from members and invited speakers, the decision was made to have a virtual CMWP Autumn Scientific and Educational meeting. The Scientific meeting took place in morning and afternoon sessions on Friday, 24th September. The chairs from the six subcommittees (MDS, MPN, Plasma Cell Diseases, CML, CLL, and Practice Harmonisation and Guidelines) provided an overview of recently papers, ongoing studies and new proposals. These included papers on allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation in patients with myelodysplastic syndrome using treosulfan-based compared to other reduced-intensity or myeloablative conditioning regimens (MDS subcommittee - BJH Sept 2021), proposed definitions and management strategies for graft failure, poor graft function and relapse in allogeneic haematopoietic cell transplantation for myelofibrosis (MPN subcommittee - Leukemia Sept 2021) and second allogeneic transplants for multiple myeloma (Plasma Cell Diseases subcommittee - BMT October 2021). Statisticians and data managers from the EBMT Leiden office also brought us up to date on Data Quality Initiatives in CML and CMML, among other diseases, and the updating of MED-B forms.

On Saturday, there were over 100 registered attendees for an extensive educational programme which started at 9.30am and continued until 5.20pm. The Myelofibrosis session was chaired by Tomasz Czerw (Poland) and consisted of talks on 'How to manage cytopenias post-allo-HCT in MF patients' by Donal McLornan (London) and 'Allo-HCT in systemic agressive mastocytosis' by Gandhi Damaj (Amiens). The subsequent Myeloma session was chaired by Meral Beksac (Ankara). Xavier Leleu (Poitiers) spoke on 'the best regimen to treat relapse after auto-HCT in MM' and S. Mastaglio (Milan) discussed 'CARAMBA academic anti-SLAM7 CAR T cells'.

Following a mid-morning coffee break, Marie Robin (Paris) chaired the MDS session. We were fortunate to have three excellent talks focusing on recent progress in the management of Chronic Myelomonocytic Leukaemia (CMML): Allo-HCT in CMML vs MDS by A. Rovo (Bern), Transplant vs no transplant in CMML by Marie Robin (Paris) and International Consensus on Allo-HCT in CMML patients by Francesco Onida (Milan). Finally, M. Nabergoj (Geneva) provided an illuminating update on Therapy-related myeloid neoplasm following breast cancer.

We retreated from our screens for an hour-long lunch break before returning to a full afternoon session which started with a session on Statistical Analysis entitled 'From standard to current PFS and similar endpoints: approaches and issues'. Simona Iacobelli (Rome) covered Concepts, Liesbeth de Wreede (Leiden) Methods, and Luuk Gras (Leiden) Data. These sessions usefully highlighted the various statistical techniques which are so crucial to EBMT studies.

The penultimate session on Practice Harmonisation and Guidelines was chaired by Michel van Gelder (Maastricht). Claire Roddie (London) provided a comprehensive overview of the forthcoming EBMT/EHA best practice guidelines for CAR T-cell patients. Ibrahim Yakoug-Agha (Lille), our Working Party Chair, spoke on the Management of CRS/MAS/ICANS. The last session of the productive two-day meeting consisted a Keynote lecture by M. Della Porta (Milan) on 'Personalized Prognostic Assessment on the basis of clinical and genomic features in MDS'. There was then an informative audience question-and-answer session. Ibrahim thanked all the participants and brought to a close a stimulating day of transplant-focused debate.

We agreed that the next CMWP Scientific and Educational meeting will be held in person in Milan on Friday 14th and Saturday 15th January 2022.