EHA Unplugged

Treatment of low-risk patients with polycythemia vera (PV) and myelofibrosis (MF) is still a matter of debate. Although traditionally these patients were managed exclusively with supportive treatment, more recent guidelines suggest the opportunity of identifying subgroups of patients eligible for cytoreduction. In this debate recorded during the EHA22 Annual Congress, experts Claire Harrison and C...

Join our guest Dr Martin Kaiser and host Dr Nathalie van Havre, as they talk about Heath Technology Assessment (HTA) in hematology and in Europe’s public healthcare landscape. Our speakers discuss the relevance of HTA for hematologists and how it aims to standardize access to new health technologies for patients across Europe. Furthermore, they examine the challenges in generating solid evidence t...

In this podcast, you will listen to Prof Antonis Kattamis summarizing the last developments in the treatment of patients with thalassemia. While the life expectancy of these patients has considerably improved in the last decades, quality of life and disease burden is still a relevant issue. However, new classes of drugs, with action of the pathophysiologic mechanisms of the disease, are entering t...

In this podcast, Prof Paolo Ghia discusses the current treatment landscape of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL), providing a guide for clinicians faced with an ever-growing number of therapeutic alternatives. Within targeted therapies, a special focus is dedicated to BTK inhibitors and their different characteristics, and to the long-term results of the ASCEND trial. The management of CLL is chan...

In this podcast, Prof Mario Cazzola illustrates the genesis of the new ICC classification of myeloid neoplasms, published in 2022 (Arber DA et al, Blood 2022), with a special focus on MDS, and the new nosological entities that have been defined in it. The new entities, namely  SF3B1 -mutant MDS,  TP53  multi-hit MDS, and clonal cytopenia of undetermined significance (CCUS), underline the importanc...

What are the latest guidelines for the management of patients with Transfusion-Dependent Thalassemia (TDT)? In 2022, the fourth edition of the TIF (Thalassemia International Federation) guidelines for the management of patients with transfusion-dependent thalassemia (TDT) was published. In this podcast, Prof Ali Taher discusses with our host, Dr Nathalie van Havre, the main news of this edition, i...

Spotlight Talks: Updates on the Classification of Hematolymphoid Neoplasms: Lymphoid Diseases In this podcast, Prof John Gribben, former President of EHA, discusses the new ICC lymphoid malignancies classification (Campo E, et al. Blood, 2022), highlighting the main novelties introduced for specific entities and explaining the new criteria guiding the diagnosis and prognosis of lymphoproliferative...

Is CAR-T economically sustainable? Join our guest Prof Martin Dreyling and host Dr Nathalie van Havre as they discuss the costs of CAR-T cell therapy for the treatment of blood disorders at an individual level and whether it is economically sustainable for health systems. Listen along as they consider the financial challenges of patient selection for this costly life-saving therapy, based on Prof...

What is Plan S and what has happened to it? Join our guest Dr Nuno Borges and host Dr Christian Scharenberg as they talk about the core principles, goals, and challenges of Plan S. Listen along as Dr Borges discusses the controversies aroused by Plan S and the “publish or perish” paradigm faced by early career scientists. Dr Borges ends this podcast on a positive note where he believes that slowly...

What is clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP) and its associated risks in elderly patients? Join our guest Prof Kirsten Gronbaek and host Dr Christian Scharenberg as they discuss CHIP, its biological significance, frequency in the general population, and its association with epigenetic age. Listen along as Prof Gronbaek dives deeper into the subject and explains the association an...

What can a not-for-profit NGO do for patients in a time of war? Join our guests, Prof Konstanze Döhner, Prof Elizabeth Macintyre, and Dr Nathalie van Havre as they discuss what the European Hematology Association (EHA) has done in favor of Ukraine and the Ukrainian hematological community. Our guests talk about support programs EHA has implemented and the obstacles that came with that. Prof Macint...

Join our guest Prof David Rees and host Dr Christian Scharenberg as they discuss how the concept of precision medicine can be applied to Sickle Cell Disease (SCD). Listen as Prof David Rees talks about prognostic markers and how they can (or can't) guide SCD disease management, current and new treatment options for SCD patients, and how the situation of precision medicine can differ between low- a...

How did CLL lose its role of "Cinderella" in hematology in the last decades, thanks to the introduction of entirely new classes of drugs, and came under the spotlight of clinical research in hematology? Prof Jennifer Woyach discusses the fundamentals of CLL genetics and treatment in this podcast, as well as the selection of patients for therapy, the different, and somewhat unpredictable, clinical...

The links between thrombosis and cancer have been known for a long time and are associated with the type of cancer (pancreatic and lung carcinomas, for example, are particularly prone to give this complication), its localization, and the anti-neoplastic treatment used to fight the cancer itself. Prof Jan Marie Connors, in this podcast, explains how a thrombotic episode may represent the first indi...

In this podcast, Prof Tessa Andermann, an expert in infectious diseases, provides an overview of the role of the microbiome in the homeostasis of the human body and how it has been implicated in the development of complications after allogeneic transplantations, including acute graft-versus-host-disease, infections, mortality, and disease relapse. Some of the relationships observed between changes...

How do you make a diagnosis of erythrocytosis? Is full blood count enough or do you need more specific tests? How is the classification in primary and secondary erythrocytosis linked to EPO levels? Is idiopathic erythrocytosis really a vanishing entity? These are some of the questions Prof Mary-Frances McCullin answers in this podcast, giving listeners the key information necessary to understand e...

In the seventh and final episode of the Clinical Trial podcast series, you can hear Prof. Konstanze Döhner and Prof. Antonio Almeida exchanging ideas and thought-provoking opinions about how investigator-initiated clinical trials and new trial designs can provide patients early access to novel drugs. They discuss the importance of large collaborative groups, the complexity of current requirements...

This series of two podcasts leads you on a journey through the main clinical and therapeutical aspects of Cutaneous T Cell Lymphomas (CTCLs), a heterogeneous group of lymphoid neoplasms characterized by primary cutaneous localization. Albeit rare, CTCLs have peculiar clinical characteristics, requiring a multidisciplinary approach and a strict collaboration between different specialists, allowing...

This series of two podcasts leads you on a journey through the main clinical and therapeutical aspects of Cutaneous T Cell Lymphomas (CTCLs), a heterogeneous group of lymphoid neoplasms characterized by primary cutaneous localization. Albeit rare, CTCLs have peculiar clinical characteristics, requiring a multidisciplinary approach and a strict collaboration between different specialists, allowing...

Dr David Kurtz discusses in this podcast the most recent technical developments and practical applications of circulating tumor DNA and liquid biopsies, an active area of research in the last 25 years, which is now gaining more importance and translational application in the clinic. In tumors like B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphomas, for example, somatic mutations can now be tracked and diagnosed using t...

The whole world of CML changed in the early 2000s with the introduction of imatinib and TKIs, however, the situation in developing countries can be significantly different from Europe and USA, as discussed by Prof Hemant Malhotra in this podcast. Short-backs may encompass the molecular diagnosis and monitoring of the disease (not everywhere available) as well as the cost of drugs and medical expen...

Transfusion processes have changed significantly in recent years, at the same time changing the guidelines for blood cell replacement therapy. Listen to Prof. Michael Murphy in this podcast as he provides an overview of the most up-to-date topics in transfusion, including the relevant risk of over-transfusion, restricted transfusion practices, and also the issues of delayed transfusion and transfu...

This podcast follows a short discussion between two young hematologists on a clinical case review of a chronic myeloid leukemia patient called Naomi. In this discussion, the hematologists go through Naomi’s case while addressing the management of CML patients in complete molecular response and the requirements for discontinuation of tyrosine kinase treatment in CML patients. This podcast is render...

In the sixth episode of the Clinical Trial podcast series, Prof. Robert Hills discusses the different reasons that lead to the end of a trial – especially when it is earlier than planned. He also gives us a summary of what happens after the trial; the importance of some steps involving the data and their availability, and the writing of reports for the appropriate regulatory authorities. In this s...

In the fourth episode of the EHA Diagnosing And Treating Iron Deficiency podcast series, host Prof Gunnar Birgegård and guest expert Prof Antonio Almeda discuss the diagnostic and therapeutic management of iron deficiency and anemia in the perioperative setting, a clinical situation where having inadequate iron stores carries significant clinical consequences on mortality and morbidity outcomes. T...