Mallorie B. Heneghan
· Assistant Professor (Clinical)VerifiedUniversity of Utah · Hematology & Oncology
Active 2009–2026
About
Mallorie B. Heneghan is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Utah in the Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at Primary Children's Medical Center. She is board-certified in Pediatrics and Pediatric Hematology and Oncology. Dr. Heneghan received her medical degree from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, completed her Pediatric residency at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and her Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Fellowship at Northwestern University/Ann and Robert H Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. She also earned a Master of Science in Health Services and Outcomes Research from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Her clinical interests include the care of children, adolescents, and young adults with leukemia, lymphoma, and various other cancers. Her research focuses on technology-based interventions, data science, and patient-reported outcomes to predict, monitor, and improve outcomes for children, adolescents, and young adults with hematologic malignancies.
Research topics
- Psychiatry
- Medicine
- Psychology
- Gerontology
- Pediatrics
- Family medicine
- Internal medicine
- Social psychology
Selected publications
New Developments in Hodgkin's Lymphoma
Hematology/Oncology Clinics of North America · 2026-02-09
articleJNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute · 2026-01-27
articlePediatric Hodgkin lymphoma (pHL) is a highly curable malignancy in children, adolescents, and young adults, and current treatment strategies aim to minimize adverse late effects. Many patients are enrolled in clinical trials with centralized review for both initial and interim staging. Although academic guidelines provide a structured framework for image interpretation, real-world clinical scenarios sometimes present imaging pitfalls that require nuanced judgment. Morphologic and metabolic imaging pitfalls refer to misinterpretation of findings that occur during staging, disease evaluation, or post-treatment surveillance. In pHL, such pitfalls may result from suboptimal imaging conditions, concurrent inflammatory, infectious, or other findings. These findings do not indicate neoplastic disease but rather are manifestations of other processes specific to each tissue or organ. This Staging, Evaluation and Response Criteria Harmonization for Childhood, Adolescent, and Young Adult Hodgkin Lymphoma (SEARCH for CAYAHL) initiative represents a transatlantic collaboration among multidisciplinary professionals, aiming to disseminate the insights gained from decades of centralized review experience in North American and European clinical trials. This paper aims to optimize patient care by integrating imaging and clinical expertise in disease staging and surveillance. Although not intended as a comprehensive staging guide, it highlights recurrent imaging pitfalls that may lead to incorrect staging or response assessment. By encouraging interdisciplinary exchange, this work seeks to complement existing literature and serve as a troubleshooting guide for situations where clinical realities diverge from academic paradigms.
Pediatric Blood & Cancer · 2026-05-08
articleOpen accessBACKGROUND: Blinatumomab is a bispecific T-cell engager approved for the treatment of pediatric B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL). Outpatient home infusion reduces hospitalization burden and optimizes resource utilization, but is logistically challenging. METHODS: Our institution developed a multidisciplinary outpatient blinatumomab protocol. The workflow included early prior authorization, home healthcare (HH) partnerships, and standardized procedures for outpatient management. Clinical and logistical data were prospectively collected from August 2024 to August 2025. RESULTS: Since initiation, 50 patients aged 1-23 years have received blinatumomab. Patients resided within five states across the Intermountain West, with distances to the treating hospital ranging from 4.8 to 640 miles (mean 109 miles). Thirty patients (60%) lived within 50 miles of the treating institution, four (8%) lived 50-100 miles away, and 16 (32%) resided more than 100 miles away. All patients were able to receive blinatumomab outpatient, with 96% of patients able to receive services locally for the majority of the infusion period. Ninety-eight percent of patients used HH for outpatient drug delivery and/or nursing care. Our workflow standardized agency responsibilities, bag change frequency, and emergency contact protocols. This model limited inpatient stays to 24-48 h for most patients, expanded access across a large geographic area, and decreased travel burden. CONCLUSIONS: Outpatient blinatumomab administration is feasible, safe, and resource-efficient when supported by a structured care coordination framework. Partnerships with HH providers, proactive insurance authorization, and standardized troubleshooting protocols are critical for success. This model has reduced costs, preserved hospital resources, and improved quality of life.
European Journal Of Haematology · 2025-01-20 · 3 citations
articleOpen accessBACKGROUND: Low 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP) adherence (< 95%) is associated with increased relapse in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Stronger habit has been associated with higher adherence. We examined the relationship of 6-MP adherence to habit strength and health-related quality of life in pediatric ALL. METHODS: ), Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System Medication Adherence Scale, and the Self-Regulated Habit Index (SRHI). Twelve semi-structured participant interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. RESULTS: ≥ 95%): patients 91% (10/11), parents 78% (32/41). No significant correlation was found between adherence and habit strength. Reported adherence facilitators included reminders, care team communications, personalized tools, administration experience, self-efficacy, and social support. Conversely, financial burden, scheduling conflicts, and medication access were cited as barriers. CONCLUSIONS: One-fifth of participants reported low 6-MP adherence, with habit strength not associated with adherence. Variability of 6-MP routines may prohibit automaticity. While 6-MP adherence may not correlate with habit strength, interventions promoting and strengthening habit formation may overcome barriers to 6-MP adherence and improve outcomes.
Hematological Oncology · 2025-06-01
articleOpen accessN. Dakhallah and J. Steglich equally contributing author. Introduction: Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) is a highly curable malignancy in children, adolescents, and young adults (CAYA), and current treatment strategies aim to minimize adverse late effects. Many patients are enrolled in clinical trials that include centralized review for both initial and interim staging. While academic guidelines provide a structured framework, real-world clinical scenarios sometimes present imaging pitfalls that require nuanced judgment. Methods: The Staging, Evaluation and Response Criteria (SEARCH) for CAYAHL initiative was established in 2011 to harmonize staging and response criteria in HL in CAYA. However, applying these published criteria can present challenges in situations where imaging pitfalls are encountered. This SEARCH for CAYAHL project is a transatlantic collaboration among experts in diagnostic radiology, nuclear medicine radiology, radiation oncology and pediatric oncology. A working group first identified the most frequent and relevant imaging pitfalls in HL. Through literature review, imaging and clinical experience, and the use of specific real-word cases, this effort defines and describes imaging pitfalls in HL in CAYA. Results: Morphologic and metabolic imaging pitfalls in HL refer to the misinterpretation of findings that can occur during staging, disease evaluation, or post-treatment surveillance. These radiological findings are not indicative of disease but are rather manifestations of other causes that are specific to each tissue or organ. In this work, we explore pitfalls resulting from suboptimal imaging conditions, concurrent inflammatory, infectious, or other causes. We discuss organ specific pitfalls involving the lymph nodes, lungs, bone, bone marrow, spleen, liver and Waldeyer’s ring and present important considerations on imaging following the completion of therapy. Conclusions: This collaborative effort aims to disseminate insights gained from decades of centralized review experience in North American and European trials to optimize patient care by integrating imaging and clinical expertise. Although not intended as a comprehensive staging guide, it highlights recurrent imaging pitfalls that may lead to diagnostic uncertainty. By encouraging interdisciplinary exchange, this work seeks to complement existing literature and serve as a troubleshooting guide for situations where clinical realities diverge from academic paradigms, ultimately paving the way for improved patient outcomes. Keywords: Hodgkin lymphoma (pediatric, adolescent, and young adult) Potential sources of conflict of interest: C. Mauz-Körholz Employment or leadership position: Institutional research grant Merck Consultant or advisory role: Merck advisory board
Klinische Pädiatrie · 2025-12-01
article1st authorCorrespondingBlood · 2025-11-03
articleOpen access1st authorCorrespondingAbstract Introduction: Classic Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) is one of the most common cancers in adolescents and young adults (AYA; 15-39 years [y]). Nationally representative studies demonstrate inferior outcomes among AYA patients versus children with conventional HL therapy. Drivers of inferior outcomes in AYA patients are likely multifactorial with much of the published data being focused on differences in care delivery across the age spectrum. Few studies have evaluated how clinical and disease-related factors may vary by age or across the two most common HL histology subgroups, mixed cellularity (MC) and nodular sclerosing (NS) disease, and therefore contribute to these inferior outcomes. This is an important gap for two reasons: 1) the incidence of HL differs by age, and 2) the magnitude of the association between age and outcome in HL differs by histologic subgroup – a likely proxy for yet-undescribed biologic variations. For example, among patients with MC disease enrolled on Children's Oncology Group (COG) clinical trials for newly diagnosed HL, we identified a 17% decrease in event free survival among older (≥15y) patients compared to younger patients (&lt;15y) for reasons that remain unknown. To fill this gap, the present analysis leverages a novel cohort of children, adolescents, and young adults (CAYA) from clinical trials and the COG registry to evaluate patient, disease, and presenting characteristics by histology (MC vs. NS) and by age within the MC subgroup. Methods: Pooled analyses were performed using individual-level data from 4,673 patients with either MC (ICD-O 9652) or NS (ICD-O Morphology codes 9663, 9664, 9665, 9667) histology enrolled on COG registry APEC14B1 (N = 2310, 2015-2025) and four phase III COG clinical trials for HL (N = 2363, 2002-2019). Descriptive analyses of sociodemographic variables (age, sex, race, ethnicity) and clinical characteristics including Ann Arbor stage (I-IV), B-symptoms, bulky disease (nodal aggregate &gt;6cm or mediastinal mass greater than 1/3 thoracic diameter), and bone marrow involvement within stage IV were performed. Sociodemographic and clinical characteristics were compared by histology and age (&lt;15y vs. ≥15y) within those with MC disease using test for categorical variables and analysis of variance for continuous variables. Results: The analytic cohort included N=493 patients with MC histology and N=4,180 with NS histology. Mean age of the cohort was 15.2y (+/- 3.5) with 1,850 (40%) patients &lt;15y and 50% being female. At presentation, patients with MC (vs. NS) histology were younger (13.4y vs. 15.5y, p&lt;0.001) and were more likely to be Hispanic (29% vs. 17%, p&lt;0.001), male (68% vs. 48%, p&lt;0.001), and publicly insured (39% vs. 30%, p&lt;0.001). Patients with MC (vs. NS) histology were also more likely to present with stage I disease (15% vs. 3.2%, p&lt;0.001), and were less likely to have B-symptoms (33% vs. 37%, p=0.040) or bulky disease (55% vs. 65%, p&lt;0.001). Among those with stage IV disease, 33% (31/95) of those with MC had bone marrow involvement compared to only 15% (156/1050) among Stage IV NS patients (p&lt;0.001). Within the MC histology cohort of patients, 56% were &lt;15 years. Younger (vs. older) patients with MC histology were more likely to be male (75% vs. 58%, p&lt;0.001), be publicly insured (44% vs. 34%, p=0.024), and were less likely to have B-symptoms (26% vs. 40%, p =0.001). Within the MC cohort, there was no difference by age in race/ethnicity, presenting stage, presence of bulky disease, or bone marrow involvement among those with stage IV disease.Conclusion: In the largest cohort of CAYA patients with MC histology in North America, we identify a distinct clinical phenotype compared to NS. The phenotype associated with MC histology is notable for more favorable prognostic features, including earlier stage at diagnosis and fewer patients with B symptoms or bulky disease at presentation. The observation that a significantly higher proportion of those with MC (vs. NS) histology with stage IV disease had bone marrow involvement is novel and warrants further study. Although some clinical differences were noted between younger and older patients with MC histology, these do not appear to fully account for the previously reported age-related disparities in survival outcomes. Future work will investigate whether treatment-related factors (e.g. chemo sensitivity, interim disease response, efficacy of radiotherapy) account for inferior survival among older MC patients.
Blood · 2025-11-03
articleAbstract Background: Obesity adversely impacts disease response and survival for children, adolescents, and adults with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). We previously demonstrated that patients undergoing induction chemotherapy experience profound changes in body composition within these first 28 days, gaining significant fat mass and losing muscle mass (“sarcopenic obesity”). Changes in weight, and related anthropometrics such as body mass index (BMI), thus may not accurately reflect changes in body composition. This discrepancy has important implications for research and clinical assessments of sarcopenia, cachexia, malnutrition, and metabolic health during therapy. Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) is the ‘gold standard’ imaging modality for body composition assessment. However, serial imaging requires repeated radiation exposure and is logistically challenging to integrate into clinical practice. Therefore, we investigated whether anthropomorphic measures could be used as accurate surrogates for DXA to facilitate conduct of future research trials and integration of body composition assessment into clinical practice. Patients & Methods: The T2020-003 IDEAL2 randomized phase 2 trial (NCT05082519) conducted via the Therapeutic Advances in Childhood Leukemia/Lymphoma consortium is assessing a diet, exercise, and sedentary behavior intervention during induction chemotherapy in youths 7-25 years old to reduce gain in fat mass (FM) and obesity-induced chemoresistance versus standard of care. DXA scans are performed within the first 4 days of therapy when possible and again at end of induction (EOI). Patients are concurrently measured for height, weight, and waist circumference. A planned analysis tested for correlations between FM, body fat percentage (BF%), and lean mass (LM) by DXA with available anthropometric calculations validated in general populations, including: BMI, BMI z-score, relative fat mass (RFM), body roundness index (BRI), a body shape index (ABSI), waist to height ratio (WHtR), and the conicity index (C-Index). Pearson correlation coefficients and associated 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated to assess linear correlation. Measurements where the lower bound of the 95% CI was ≥0.9, 0.70-0.89, or 0.4-0.69 were considered to be very strongly (“directly”), strongly, or moderately correlated, respectively. Results: As of July 1, 2025, 45 of 82 (55%) enrolled subjects had DXA scans performed at diagnosis, and 30 (37%) had DXA scans performed at both diagnosis and EOI. Amongst the 45 patients with DXA scans at diagnosis, median age was 15.8 years (range 8.3-21.1), majority were male (80%), and most were of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity by self report (80%). At diagnosis, FM was most directly correlated with BMI (r=0.98 [95% CI 0.963-0.989]) and strongly correlated with BMI Z-score (r=0.85 [0.737-0.916]), BRI (r=0.92 [0.857-0.956]), and WHtR (r=0.91 [0.837-0.949]). BF% was strongly correlated with BMI Z-score, RFM, BRI, and WHtR, but not with BMI. In contrast, no measures strongly or directly correlated with change in FM or BF% during induction. Change in FM was only moderately correlated with BMI (r=0.70 [0.453-0.846]), RFM (r=0.74 [0.491-0.875]), BRI (r=0.74 [0.497-0.877]), WHtR (r=0.76 [0.523, 0.885]). No measure was directly or strongly correlated with LM at diagnosis or change in LM during induction. Conclusion: DXA scans are challenging to obtain urgently at the start of ALL therapy, and &lt;50% of our IDEAL2 study cohort was able to be scanned at both diagnosis and EOI. Multiple anthropometric calculations show excellent correlation to FM and BF% as surrogates of adiposity at diagnosis, but none were sufficiently correlated to estimate change in body composition by EOI. Similarly, anthropometric measurements were not adequate for assessment of LM at diagnosis or change over induction. Future research trials and clinical assessments may rely on anthropometrics as a measure of body fat at diagnosis, but clinical or research assessments focused on treatment-induced changes in body composition, or on assessments of lean mass at any timepoint, will continue to require direct radiographic assessments.
JNCI Cancer Spectrum · 2025-09-27
articleOpen accessBACKGROUND: We examined late effects clustering among adolescent and young adult (AYA; age 15-39 years at diagnosis) Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) survivors and identified characteristics associated with each cluster. METHODS: We included AYAs with HL in 2006-2018 from the California and Utah Cancer Registries linked to statewide hospitalization, emergency department, and ambulatory surgery visit data. We identified severe late effects >2 years after cancer diagnosis in 9 late effects categories. Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to identify late effects clusters. Multinomial logistic regression models estimated adjusted associations of demographic and treatment characteristics with LCA late effect group. RESULTS: We identified 4635 AYA HL survivors with median follow-up of 8.2 years and 4 late effects groups: 77.1% had a low probability of any late effect (Low Morbidity), 12.8% had high probability of Thyroid disorders, 8.0% had high probability of Cardiovascular Disease (CVD), and 2.1% had high probability of Multiple Conditions (CVD, diabetes/pancreatic, thyroid, and renal diseases). Publicly insured AYAs were more likely than those with private insurance to be in the CVD (OR = 1.53, 95% CI = 1.18 to 1.98) and Multiple Conditions (OR = 2.17, 95% CI = 1.29 to 3.66) than the Low Morbidity group. AYAs with radiation were more likely to be in the Multiple Conditions (OR = 2.31, 95% CI = 1.41 to 3.78) and Thyroid (OR = 2.81, 95% CI = 2.20 to 3.58) groups. Hematopoietic cell transplantation was associated with Multiple Conditions (OR = 9.50, 95% CI = 5.82 to 15.50), CVD (OR = 3.82, 95% CI = 2.96 to 4.93), and Thyroid (OR = 2.86, 95% CI = 2.12 to 3.85) groups. CONCLUSIONS: While most AYA HL survivors were in the Low Morbidity group, those with public insurance or intense treatment may be at higher risk for multiple conditions.
Klinische Pädiatrie · 2025-12-01
article
Frequent coauthors
- 22 shared
Sherif M. Badawy
- 14 shared
Nobuko Hijiya
Columbia University Irving Medical Center
- 12 shared
Jennifer A. Belsky
Indiana University School of Medicine
- 12 shared
Lino Tessarollo
Center for Cancer Research
- 10 shared
Elaine Morgan
Northwestern University
- 10 shared
Sharon M. Castellino
Children's Healthcare of Atlanta
- 10 shared
Matthias Hoch
Jena University Hospital
- 9 shared
Mark C. Udey
Labs
University of Utah Pediatric Hematology/OncologyPI
Education
M.D.
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
Other, Pediatric Hematology/Oncology
Northwestern University/Ann and Robert H Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago
M.S., Health Services and Outcomes Research
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
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