2-Min Drill: The Biggest Winner at the 2023 ASH Annual Meeting
Joshua Richter, MD, of Mount Sinai, and other hematologic cancer experts join CancerNetwork following the 2023 ASH Annual Meeting & Exposition to discuss the biggest winner from the 2023 meeting.
Richter: OK, studies aside, the next topic can be on anything out of ASH and it can be anything: trial data, certain drugs, a specific presenter, what they were wearing, the meeting itself—you name it. However, you only have 30 seconds each. So, I really want to know who or what was the biggest winner out of ASH and Dr Faiman, going to go to you first.
Faiman: Alright, I have to say it: location, location, location! All of us have our favorite locations for ASH and I like southern California. I like getting up at 7 am meetings and knowing it's 10 am on the Eastern coast. I like how the ASH-organizing committee gave socks to people who did well and gave pins. The whole thing was very well done, and there's a child room for those people that have children, which I could have used a few years ago. So, I think the location was the winner here.
Richter: I'm an East coaster for life. I was gonna give you 5 points, but the fact that they did have a childcare room was gonna bump you up to 10 for this one, but just made it. Dr. Matous to you, sir, who are what was the biggest winner at ASH?
Matous: All myeloma docs are amyloid docs by default, right? [The assay] where they can identify amyloidogenic lambda light chains, after limited proteolysis could be a game changer, and trying to decide the duration of therapy and end points for therapy of our patients who at least have lambda light chain amyloidosis. As much as amyloid can be as exciting, this was exciting.
Richter: I have to agree amyloid represents a continuing struggle and frustrating, complicated disease to change. This is definitely one of the biggest winners. I'm going to give you 20 points for that one, love the answer. Dr Usmani, can you tie Dr Matous with his perfect answer?
Usmani: I think this ASH was about camaraderie. We saw a lot of data, but spent a lot of time with each other, talked about collaborations for the future. This was a big ASH for myeloma with over 1500 abstracts submitted—so much data that was presented, we had our plenary and late-breaking abstract with myeloma. So all in all, this was an amazing ASH and again, focus on comraderie here.
Richter: I'm starting to tear up a little bit. I have to give you 20 points for that, because it's absolutely true. It was one of the largest ASH [meetings] in years and a big one for myeloma—big 20 points to you, sir.
