CH in children with SCD and Asciminib for CML in the ASC4FIRST trial

CH in children with SCD and Asciminib for CML in the ASC4FIRST trial

March 26, 2026 · 14 min · Season 11

About this episode

This episode features an interview with Drs. Alexander Bick and Jorge Cortes discussing their recent research on clonal hematopoiesis in children with sickle cell disease and the efficacy of asciminib in chronic myeloid leukemia.

In this week's episode, Blood editor Dr. Laura Michaelis interviews Drs. Alexander Bick and Jorge Cortes on their latest papers published in Blood . Dr. Cortes, the current EIC of Blood Global Hematology discusses " Asciminib Demonstrates Superior Efficacy and Safety in Newly Diagnosed Chronic Myeloid Leukemia in the ASC4FIRST Trial " wherein the planned secondary analysis showed a further efficacy advantage and a consistently favorable safety profile for asciminib relative to investigator-selected TKIs, especially second-generation TKIs. Dr. Bick discusses " Increased prevalence of clonal hematopoiesis in children with sickle cell disease " where targeted sequencing for CH mutations in 2318 children with SCD and 2957 controls and found that children with SCD have a higher prevalence of CH, and majority of CH cases identified were very small “micro-CH” clones, more work is needed to define the clinical significance of these clones.

People in this episode

Host: Dr. Laura Michaelis

Guests: Dr. Alexander Bick, Dr. Jorge Cortes

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Blood, Blood Global Hematology

Books & works: Asciminib Demonstrates Superior Efficacy and Safety in Newly Diagnosed Chronic Myeloid Leukemia in the ASC4FIRST Trial, Increased prevalence of clonal hematopoiesis in children with sickle cell disease

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