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Immunotherapy: Which Myeloma Patients Is It Right For?

Immunotherapy: Which Myeloma Patients Is It Right For? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Dr. Krina Patel, a myeloma specialist and researcher, explains how newer therapies, such as CAR T-cell therapy, are being used in myeloma and which patients these treatments are most appropriate for.

Dr. Krina Patel is an Associate Professor in the Department of Lymphoma/Myeloma at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. Dr. Patel is involved in research and cares for patients with multiple myeloma. Learn more about Dr. Patel, here.

Related Resources:

How Does Immunotherapy Treat Myeloma?

What Are the Side Effects of Myeloma Immunotherapy?

Myeloma Treatment & Research Updates From 2022 ASCO and EHA Meetings

Transcript:

Katherine:   

Now, in reference to immunotherapy and CAR T-cell therapy, who are these types of treatments right for?

Dr. Patel:    

So, I think it’s really exciting that we finally are getting standard of care therapies for all these new immune therapies. So, our first CAR T for myeloma got approved a little over a year ago. Our second CAR T got approved just a couple of months ago, and we’re hoping our first bispecific will be approved in just a couple months.

Our fingers crossed. On the clinical trials, I will say our patients who had a good performance status, meaning they’re able to do everything else normally life-wise, those are the patients that got onto those clinical trials; and the reason is safety-wise.

So, T cells when we use them to kill myeloma, they release cytokines or enzymes, you can say, that are inside the T cells and that’s what they use to communicate with other immune cells to come help them kill.

Those are the same cytokines that make people feel really ill when they have the flu, for instance. So, as our immune system tries to fight infections when people get fevers, they feel chills, they feel just fatigued and tired, it’s those same kind of cytokines that, even when you try to kill the myeloma with T cells, people can get that same type of symptoms.

And really, the main, fevers and things like that, we can take care of. But when patients’ blood pressure drops or if their oxygen levels drop really low, that’s where we can run into some trouble. Now, the good news is, in myeloma, most of these new therapies don’t cause really bad CRS [Cytokine Release Syndrome] or really bad neurotoxicity that we can sometimes see. And so, thankfully most patients are okay, but really it’s making sure that none of our patients have bad toxicity. So, most of our myeloma patients, I will say, are eligible for these therapies. However, if someone has really bad heart disease or really bad lung disease, those are patients that maybe these are not the right therapies for.