Considering CAR T-Cell Therapy for Myeloma? Key Questions to Ask Your Doctor
Considering CAR T-Cell Therapy for Myeloma? Key Questions to Ask Your Doctor from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
What key questions should myeloma patients ask about CAR T-cell therapy? Expert Dr. Jeffrey Matous shares key advice to help patients make an informed decision about CAR T-cell therapy.
Dr. Jeffrey Matous is a myeloma specialist at the Colorado Blood Cancer Institute and the assistant chair in myeloma research for Sarah Cannon Research Institute. Learn more about Dr. Matous.
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Transcript:
Katherine:
Yeah, so what questions should patients be asking their doctor when considering CAR T-cell therapy?
Dr. Jeffrey Matous:
I think the first thing, of course, is am I a candidate, because the commercially approved CAR-T cells, there are very specific criteria for who’s a candidate, who could receive it. Okay, and then, you want to know, one, if you’re a candidate. Two, what the risks and benefits are.
Three, are there alternatives besides CAR T-cell therapy. Is it too early or too late to do this? Should we think about maybe another clinical trial or one of the T-cell redirecting antibodies, for example? You want to ask those questions for sure. These treatments are tremendously expensive, of course, and so that may come into play, as well. You want to know what the experience of the center is with CAR T-cell therapy, I think, and then, you also want to know are there clinical research studies for which you might be eligible to have CAR-T cells, not just commercially available ones, because we have two that are commercially available right now, and we have scores of CAR T-cell treatments that are still in clinical trial.