This weekend heralded the sixteenth annual meeting of the European Hematology Association (EHA) conference at the ExCel centre in the London Docklands. Completing back to back ASCO and EHA conferences across two continents will test any delegates stamina!

Like ASCO, this year was a relatively quiet one at EHA, with most of the data already known or presented elsewhere.   There were some gems in the program though.

In the latest video highlights I discuss three things that caught my attention:

  1. Is high dose cytarabine (ara-C) really necessary in AML?
  2. Brentuximab vedotin in anaplastic large cell lymphomas (ALCL)
  3. Adherence with chronic TKI therapy in CML

We have previously covered the excellent data for brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) in Hodgkin Lymphoma, but the new data presented in ALCL in the poster session was, in ways, even more dramatic as you can see from the before and after pictures included.

You can see from the video, shot on location, that the damp windy weather and rundown surroundings created a rather industrial ambience – not quite the image many may have of the Docklands and Canary Wharf, which is a couple of stops earlier on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR).

Of course, there are unplanned escapades, such as nearly missing the 8am session on Sunday morning after the Jubilee line didn’t begin until 7.20am (first train at 7.35am), then the DLR had a “system failure” at Canning Town. A quick dash down to the adjacent bus station, a frantic climb over a fence in glad rags and a rare taxi was thankfully secured for the mad dash to the ExCel centre!

Still, there is something rather edgy about hosting convention centres in marginal areas in the middle of nowhere-land, quite a trek on the Tube and DLR from the Central London:

All in all, I enjoyed the meeting in my hometown and the more relaxed academic atmosphere after the frenetic pace of ASCO, but by the end of ten days on the road it was nice to return home. It’s not all work and no play though, as you can see from this post about some of the pomp and circumstance that inevitably goes with being in London.

{UPDATE:  The day after this posted, Seattle Genetics announced they have an ODAC scheduled for July 14th.   The PDUFA date is August 30th, so with any luck, we may see this drug approved by the FDA sooner rather than later – great news for patients in the US!}