Tag Archive for: Decadron

What Are the Benefits of Myeloma Consults and Second Opinions?

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What Are the Benefits of Myeloma Consults and Second Opinions? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

What can myeloma consults and second opinions bring to patients? Expert Dr. Ola Landgren from University of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center discusses the benefits of consults, second opinions, and myeloma specialist centers.

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Transcript:

Lisa Hatfield:

I’m going to segue into a comment that I always make to myeloma patients. As Dr. Landgren was explaining all of these treatment options, he is on top of all the latest and greatest news and therapies. I always recommend to myeloma patients newly diagnosed or otherwise to seek out at least one consult from a specialist. If you have difficulty accessing care, then a lot of places can do video conferencing, but even that one consult to see a myeloma specialist is so important in your care and treatment options. So I’ll just throw that out there, Dr. Landgren, as a myeloma specialist that you are, we appreciate your expertise in explaining that so well.

Dr. Ola Landgren:

I agree 100 percent with what you said, and I would like to add to that and say, going to a specialist center and it doesn’t have to be here, can really really help. It can be a lot of small things. There is data indicating that survival is longer for patients who have access to specialists. That has been published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The Mayo Clinic has published that, I think it was more than one year longer survival.

That by itself is, of course, very strong, but I also think that there are a lot of the small things like the different types of pre-medications, the drugs that are given around myeloma drugs. Could you decrease the dose of some of these drugs like the dexamethasone (Decadron)? Could you get rid of Benadryl if you give the antibodies? These may look as small things, but they can make a huge difference for quality of life.

We have a lot of people coming for second opinions, and we always say if you live closer to someone that you trust, you should go back and be treated there. You can always reach out to us. We are happy to be involved. You have us as a backup. We can be your quarterback if you ever need us. I think that is absolutely the best advice for every patient. Go and get feedback and if you’re not sure about the feedback you get, you could always have two different quarterbacks and you could ask them. I don’t think having 10 or 20 is going to help, but having one or two second opinions, I think is a good decision.

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The Latest in Myeloma Research: Updates From ASH 2021

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The Latest in Myeloma Research: Updates from ASH 2021 from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Myeloma specialist, Dr. Omar Nadeem, shares promising research advances in myeloma from the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) annual meeting. Dr. Nadeem discusses the future of personalized medicine for myeloma, as well as positive results from a clinical study on quadruplet therapy.

Dr. Omar Nadeem is the Clinical Director of Myeloma Cellular Therapies Program and Director of Myeloma and Plasma Cell Pathways at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Learn more about Dr. Nadeem, here.

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Transcript:

Katherine:

Personalized medicine for myeloma is slowly becoming more of a reality for patients. Can you provide an update in testing in myeloma? Are there specific markers that you’re looking for when considering patient care?

Dr. Nadeem:

So in multiple myeloma, right now the only targeted therapy that’s in development is looking at venetoclax (Venclexta), and that’s in patients that have the t(11;14) translocation.

So, this has been studied for a while, both as single agent and in combinations and the big BELLINI study, which is looking at it in combination with bortezomib (Velcade) and dexamethasone (Decadron), really has had a lot of buzz over the last few years because there was a toxicity signal with the venetoclax arm.

But now with, again, updated results, etcetera, you’re starting to look to see which are the patients that benefited and which are the patients that didn’t.

And it’s becoming very, very clear that patients that have the t(11;14) translocation tend to benefit tremendously with the combination of venetoclax and bortezomib and dexamethasone. It’s really the patients that don’t have t(11;14) or high BCL2 expression, which is something that they’re also studying, those are the patients that didn’t benefit.

So, really fine tuning that to that particular population and using a combination like that is, I think, an example of where things are headed in myeloma. However, outside of that right now with where things stand, we don’t have targeted therapy to that extent beyond that.

Katherine:

Dr. Nadeem, with the ASH meeting closing out 2021, what are you excited about in myeloma research right now?

Dr. Nadeem:

We’re seeing very impressive results with using quadruplet therapies for newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patents. So, they get a combination of a CD38 monoclonal antibody like daratumamab (Darzalex), and then combining it with our typical agents. So immunomodulatory, drugs, proteasome inhibitors, and steroids. So, an update at this meeting with the phase-2 GRIFFIN trial, which was presented by my colleague Dr. Jacob Laubach, basically giving an update after 24 months of maintenance therapy.

This trial looked at a combination of dara plus RVD, which is lenalidomide, bortezomib, and dexamethasone, with transplant and maintenance, for patients with newly diagnosed myeloma. And what we’ve seen with each update of this study, that the response rates with the quadruplets are significantly better with the triplet. And more notably, we’re seeing very high rates of minimal residual disease negativity in favor of the quadruplet, which usually translates into a greater prognosis for patients.

So, median PFS is still not reached for this particular study, but you can start to see now that the curves are starting to separate and hopefully with longer follow up, we’ll see even a clearer result showing that patients that receive a quadruplet therapy at the newly diagnosed phase of their myeloma therapy benefit tremendously. So, this was a really important update at ASH this year.