Tag Archive for: iron deficiency

What’s YOUR Role in Making Myelofibrosis Treatment Decisions?

What’s YOUR Role in Making Myelofibrosis Treatment Decisions? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

How can you play a role in your myelofibrosis care? Dr. Joseph Scandura shares his personal philosophy on patient care and the important role of shared decision-making.

Dr. Joseph Scandura is Associate Professor of Medicine and Scientific Director of the Silver MPN Center at Weill Cornell Medicine. Learn more about Dr. Scandura, here.

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Have You Had These Essential Myelofibrosis Tests?

What Are the Considerations When Choosing Myelofibrosis Therapy?

Expert Perspective: Promising Myelofibrosis Treatment Research


Transcript

Katherine Banwell:

Dr. Scandura, what is the role of the patient in making treatment decisions? 

Dr. Scandura:

My personal philosophy is I view myself and my interactions with patients as a partnership. And I have and I bring to this partnership medical knowledge, some scientific knowledge, experience treating patients, understanding the diseases and the biology of the diseases. 

What patients bring is their personal histories, what they want and need from therapy, what their expectations are, where their fears and concerns might be. And as we share our information, I think that provides the opportunity to come to an understanding where the patient can make an informed decision and I can support that decision, that we know what the groundwork has been between us. And so, I spend, often, a lot of time in the beginning with patients kind of trying to understand who they are as people and what they need and expect. And everybody, as you might imagine, is an individual.  

And I present to them the information, and I try to encourage questions so that I know that they understand the information that I’m giving so that they can make a decision in their best interest. And so, I think shared decision-making is the only model I practice.  

Now, patients have different needs, particularly some of my older patients. And, culturally, there are some differences where they don’t want to take that role of being the decision-maker. And so, then my role changes a little bit, and it becomes more to make sure they’re comfortable and understand the direction that we’re going in and, again, always trying to encourage people to take ownership. 

I think, in New York City, that’s not so common. People are pretty well-informed and interested and more than willing to express their opinions.  

And so, I would say it can be very rewarding to come to a decision where patients feel their needs are being met.  

Expert Perspective: Promising Myelofibrosis Treatment Research

Expert Perspective: Promising Myelofibrosis Treatment Research from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Dr. Joseph Scandura shares optimism about myelofibrosis therapy in clinical trials, including excitement about anti-fibrotic agents and how they work.

Dr. Joseph Scandura is Associate Professor of Medicine and Scientific Director of the Silver MPN Center at Weill Cornell Medicine. Learn more about Dr. Scandura, here.

Related Programs

What Are the Considerations When Choosing Myelofibrosis Therapy?

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What’s YOUR Role in Making Myelofibrosis Treatment Decisions?


Transcript

Katherine Banwell:

Dr. Scandura, you mentioned promising research in myelofibrosis treatment. What are you most excited about right now? 

Dr. Scandura:

I think there are a couple drugs that have been in clinical trials that have had activity in a significant subset. So, anywhere from 20 to 50 percent of patients where the bone marrow fibrosis is actually reversed. 

And this is really something that we haven’t seen with other agents. And the approved agents, when that does happen, it’s really in a vast, vast minority of patients. And so, these newer drugs and, often, they’re used in combination with other approved drugs, can reverse the fibrosis in the marrow. And that is what I find most intriguing and exciting. They seem to be well-tolerated medications with predictable and reversible side effects when they do exist. And I think that time will tell if the promise is long-lived or if it’s short-lived. I mean, obviously, new drugs we don’t have the experience with that we really need. 

The clinical trials that are available now with some of these agents are in the last stages before the companies go to the FDA seeking approval for use. 

And so, we don’t have their results from those studies yet. They’re just opening, so sometimes the excitement doesn’t bear out when we do the rigorous clinical trials. But I’m actually quite optimistic about some of these agents, and I think that there is going to really be a sea change in how we treat patients and some of the outcomes we can expect from our therapies.  

COVID-19 Vaccination: What Do Myelofibrosis Patients Need to Know?

COVID-19 Vaccination: What Do Myelofibrosis Patients Need to Know? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

 Should myelofibrosis patients get the COVID-19 vaccine? Dr. Joseph Scandura discusses the risks and benefits of vaccination.

Dr. Joseph Scandura is Associate Professor of Medicine and Scientific Director of the Silver MPN Center at Weill Cornell Medicine. Learn more about Dr. Scandura, here.

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What Are the Considerations When Choosing Myelofibrosis Therapy?

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What’s YOUR Role in Making Myelofibrosis Treatment Decisions?


Transcript

Katherine Banwell:

Is the COVID-19 vaccine safe for patients with myelofibrosis, and how does the vaccine affect treatment? 

Dr. Scandura:

So, I will flip that question around a little bit. I live in New York City.  

If I cross the street, the decision to cross the street is potentially a life-or-death decision. And whatever minor decision you’re making, there are always risks and there are always potential benefits. So, I might get home, I might get run over by a cab. And so, I try to mitigate those risks as I can by crossing in certain streets, looking both ways. So, when we talk about vaccine, we also have to talk about the other part of it. What is the risk of not being vaccinated? And so, we know COVID-19 is a severe illness in a subset of patients, we know that if you take all people, about 1 percent of people die from COVID. 

 If we take all people from the vaccine who have been vaccinated, the number of serious side effects is very, very, very, very small, so, like .000, you know, something percent. 

So, very low. It doesn’t mean it’s zero, but it’s very, very low. So, just looking at those numbers, I say for virtually everybody, the risk/benefit is in favor of vaccination. In patients with myelofibrosis, we’ve had the opportunity collectively across the world to gather experience and look at patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms and how they responded to COVID when they were infected with COVID. And worldwide, the toxicity of COVID in patients seems to be quite high. And so, patients with myelofibrosis may be at higher risk from COVID. 

I can’t say that they absolutely are because this is imperfect data, but that’s the experience that has been published so far.  

We really don’t know anything about the experience of patients to the vaccine. Actually, at my center, we have a myeloproliferative diseases center, and we are trying to collect that information because patients often ask, and I don’t have any results from that. But I think that, all told, there is no reason to expect higher symptoms in patients with myelofibrosis from vaccination. And what we do know is that the risk of not being vaccinated is probably higher than the risk of being vaccinated.   

What Are the Considerations When Choosing Myelofibrosis Therapy?

What Are the Considerations When Choosing Myelofibrosis Therapy? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

 When choosing a myelofibrosis treatment, how do you determine what might be best for you? Dr. Joseph Scandura shares expert advice, including a review of inhibitor therapy and stem cell transplant.

Dr. Joseph Scandura is Associate Professor of Medicine and Scientific Director of the Silver MPN Center at Weill Cornell Medicine. Learn more about Dr. Scandura, here.

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Transcript

Katherine Banwell:

What are the considerations when choosing treatment for myelofibrosis?  

Dr. Scandura:

I would say in broad strokes, the primary considerations are the patient, what they want, the disease, what our options are, and the overall condition in terms of what are our possibilities for therapy and what is the risk/benefit of some of these different therapies. So, in myelofibrosis, although there’s been a huge amount of research over the past 10 years, really blossoming and are very impressive in, I think, an exciting way, there really are only two therapies that are approved by the FDA in the treatment of myelofibrosis, and those both affect one class of agents. These are JAK2 inhibitors, and those can be ruxolitinib (Jakafi) and fedratinib (Inrebicare the two drugs that are approved. 

Now, we have a number of therapies that have been used off-label, meaning without FDA approval, so often and for so long that they’re considered alternative standards of therapy. These can be growth factors; these can be biological agents in certain situations. And then, clinical trials is really increasingly a common therapeutic option for patients.  

And then, on the most aggressive side, is hematopoietic stem cell transplant and allogeneic transplant getting blood-forming cells from another person and replacing the entire blood system through transplant. 

Katherine Banwell:

So, who is right for a stem cell transplant? 

Dr. Scandura:

I would say, first and foremost, an informed patient about the risks of transplant and a patient for whom a donor exists, and a good quality donor. Transplant is not an option for some people or if a donor can’t be identified, obviously. 

And it’s a patient for whom the risk balance, the risk/benefit balance is tipped so that the potential toxicity, frankly, of transplant is warranted. Transplant is our most aggressive therapy. Virtually every patient will have significant side effects from transplant. Some of them are short-lived, some of them can be chronic. People die from the consequences of transplant. And so, it’s not something that is considered in patients who are necessarily doing well or are frail. The risk of transplant versus the benefit may not be in favor of transplant at that time.  

My approach for transplant is to get advice from transplant physicians. I’m not a transplant physician, but I have colleagues who I refer to. 

And I refer in myelofibrosis fairly universally fairly early, with the rationale being that this is information. It is not a plan; it is to speak to a transplant, what kind of donor exists. If no donor exists, then transplant is not on the table. If we have a very good, high-quality donor, then this is something that wouldn’t make the decision in itself, but it’s kind of something we can keep in our hip pocket in case we need it. And I think it’s important for patients to understand and have a full and complete discussion with a transplant physician so they understand what that means. You know, it is a significant commitment of time and morbidity, and it comes with risks. 

It is also our only curative therapy. And so, it’s a double-edged sword, and I think informed patients and understanding what the options are are the gateway to any consideration of transplant.   

Primary vs. Secondary Myelofibrosis: What’s the Difference?

Primary vs. Secondary Myelofibrosis: What’s the Difference? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Are primary and secondary myelofibrosis different? Dr. Joseph Scandura, a specialist in myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs), explains the diagnoses and shares insight into each type.

Dr. Joseph Scandura is Associate Professor of Medicine and Scientific Director of the Silver MPN Center at Weill Cornell Medicine. Learn more about Dr. Scandura, here.

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Transcript

Katherine Banwell:

Dr. Scandura, would you start by introducing yourself?  

Dr. Scandura:

Sure. My name’s Joe ScanduraI’m an assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. I’m a physician scientist. My laboratory studies blood formation, normal and malignant, and clinically I treat people with  myeloid neoplasms, particularly, and myeloproliferative neoplasms.  

Katherine Banwell:

Would you define myelofibrosis for us, and also provide an explanation of primary versus secondary myelofibrosis? 

Dr. Scandura:

Sure. Myelofibrosis is in the class of diseases called myeloproliferative neoplasms. And, really, its sort of marker feature is scarring in the bone marrow.  

Clinically, this comes along most commonly and fairly universally with anemia, and there can be abnormalities of both the white blood cell count and the platelet count, sometimes, often in the beginning, being too high. And then they can also become too low. 

It tends to be a progressive disease, or on the face on which it progresses is different in different people and there are a variety of different features that can go along with risk. But every individual, of course, is individual.  

A primary myelofibrosis is what we refer to when the diagnosis is made and there’s no antecedent, there’s no precursor malignancy. And so, you come in and the diagnosis is myelofibrosis, and we can’t find anything that came before it.  

Secondary myelofibrosis is what we refer to when somebody has another blood disorder, usually essential thrombocythemia or polycythemia vera, and in a small subset of these patients, the disease can change, what we call evolve or progress into a fibrotic phenotype or associated with the marrow scarring, and a lot of the features of myelofibrosis. Although there are some subtle differences between primary and secondary, they’re more similar than different in terms of their clinical features and how we treat them. 

How Does Inhibitor Therapy Work to Treat Myelofibrosis?

How Does Inhibitor Therapy Work to Treat Myelofibrosis? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

What is inhibitor therapy? Dr. Joseph Scandura reviews approved JAK inhibitor therapies and explains how they work to treat myelofibrosis.

Dr. Joseph Scandura is Associate Professor of Medicine and Scientific Director of the Silver MPN Center at Weill Cornell Medicine. Learn more about Dr. Scandura, here.

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Transcript

Katherine Banwell:

How does inhibitor therapy work to treat myelofibrosis? 

Dr. Scandura:

So, the therapies that we have now that are approved therapies that are in this class are  ruxolitinib (Jakafi) and fedratinib (Inrebic) 

Both of these agents act to block signaling through a protein called JAK2. You can think of JAK2 as being part of the antennae system that a cell uses to communicate with the rest of the body. And so, our blood-forming cells have a lot of input from the body saying, “Okay, we need some of these kinds of cells, we need some of those kinds of cells,” and it’s a very adaptive system. And JAK2 is involved in a lot of the signaling in this as part of the antennae system.  

And what happens in the myeloproliferative neoplasms is that signaling is a bit excessive. 

And so, it’s like the volume is turned up too loud and the signaling is causing the cells to do things, make too many cells, make the wrong kinds of cells, and JAK2 is part of that signaling system. So, these inhibitors kind of help turn down the volume of the signaling in these blood-forming cells. They are drugs that have good activity in improving symptoms, they have great success in reducing the size of the spleen, they can be useful for a few years to many years. They are not curative therapies. We don’t think of them as therapies that change the course of disease, but they certainly have an important role in helping people feel better. There are other inhibitor therapies that are in clinical development. 

So, clinical trials of some of these drugs have really impressive activity, but none is approved yet by the FDA.  

I hope and expect we’ll have a couple more drugs available in the coming years. And there’s a lot of excitement in clinical trials in terms of some of the activities that are being seen, and really quite tolerable therapies, so not a lot of side effects for patients. And so, I think it’s kind of an exciting time for physicians and for patients and a lot more options now and, I think, a lot more options coming down the line.

Which Gene Mutations Impact Myelofibrosis Treatment Options?

Which Gene Mutations Impact Myelofibrosis Treatment Options? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Are there specific mutations that may affect myelofibrosis treatment choices? Dr. Joseph Scandura explains the factors that are considered when deciding a myelofibrosis therapy, including a discussion of high-risk and low-risk disease.

Dr. Joseph Scandura is Associate Professor of Medicine and Scientific Director of the Silver MPN Center at Weill Cornell Medicine. Learn more about Dr. Scandura, here.

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Transcript

Katherine Banwell:

Are there gene mutations that affect myelofibrosis treatment choices? 

Dr. Scandura:

Yeah. So, you know, the primary mutations in JAK2 or CALR or MPL in myelofibrosis aren’t that helpful in guiding therapy.  

And we look at the other genes for co-ocurrent mutations and those, as I was mentioning before, can come into one of two categories. So, there are a number of genes that we know tend to confer a higher risk, and so we call those high molecular risk mutations. And people who have higher molecular risk tend to have a more aggressive disease. 

Now, I want to add a word of caution because when we talk about patients and risk, we’re talking about groups of patients. For any individual, everything kind of boils down to it happens, or it doesn’t happen. And so, there’s nobody is 50 percent dead in five years, right. You either are or you’re not. And so, when we talk about risk, then we’re talking about risk of bad things happening like death or other complications of the disease, we’re trying to guide treatment decision-making and guided discussion based on a chance.  

But all of those things, for any individual, there are people who have high risk who do quite well for a long period of time, and people who don’t have high risk who don’t do as well as you think they should. And so, it’s a part of a conversation, it helps guide discussion, but it is not something carved into stone, and nobody has a perfect ability to predict anybody’s future. 

And all of these things are our best tools to estimate, but they are not a future; they are a possibility. And so, people who have higher molecular risk, we might think about more aggressive treatments than people who have lower molecular risk.  

Have You Had These Essential Myelofibrosis Tests?

Have You Had These Essential Myelofibrosis Tests? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

What are the essential tests that should follow a myelofibrosis diagnosis? Dr. Joseph Scandura reviews the necessary laboratory testing, along with a discussion of next generation sequencing, and explains how often bone marrow biopsies should take place.

Dr. Joseph Scandura is Associate Professor of Medicine and Scientific Director of the Silver MPN Center at Weill Cornell Medicine. Learn more about Dr. Scandura, here.

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Transcript

Katherine Banwell: 

What testing should take place following a myelofibrosis diagnosis? 

Dr. Scandura:  

So, a diagnosis of myelofibrosis always comes after a bone marrow exam and a physical examination. Often, patients have an enlarged spleen and blood count testing and a variety of other laboratory tests. So, after that and a diagnosis is made of myelofibrosis and, sort of, coincident with the diagnosis, we often look for molecular markers of myelofibrosis. So, these are malignancies of the bone marrow, cancers, if you will, on the bone marrow, although the term is scarier than or is different than what we think of for many malignancies in how it acts. But the myelofibrosis, this is a disease that’s characterized by, really, mutations in the malignant cells, the abnormal cells. 

They’re really just one of three genes. And so, JAK2 being one of the genes, calreticulin or CALR being another one, and MPL one.  

And more than 90 percent are people having mutation in just one of those three genes. And so, often at the time of diagnosis, tests for those mutations are done, and they help eliminate the possibilities of other causes of myelofibrosis – infections, rheumatological diseases. Sometimes, you can have marrow fibrosis but they don’t go along with mutations and the same clinical situation. And so, at the time of diagnosis, we usually know something about a mutation in JAK2, CALR, or MPL.    

More commonly now, and it’s increasingly common over the past 10 years in, I would say, in New York City and many places across the country, we also look more broadly for other common mutations in the MPN cells. And these are what we refer in the batch as next generation sequencing or NGS panels, and we use the term panels because we’re looking at from a few tens to even 100 or a couple hundred genes for mutations that occur far less frequently than in JAK2 or MPL or CALR.  

But they occur often enough that some of them we use to help guide treatment decision-making or approach to therapy. The reality of it is that that the technology to sequence and identify mutations has really outstripped our knowledge of what to do with all of that information. 

And, for the vast majority of people, it comes down to do you have a marker, a genetic marker that tends to go along with higher risk, meaning a higher likelihood of something that we don’t want to have happen. And in that instance, although it may be looking at a hundred or so genes, it comes down to a binary thing – either you have or you don’t have. 

Katherine Banwell:

Is there any other testing that you usually want to do? 

Dr. Scandura:

Laboratory testing, for sure and, as I mentioned before, a bone marrow exam. But physical examination, some people might do imaging of the spleen size. Honestly, I don’t routinely do that outside of the setting of the clinical trial. I don’t really think it dictates therapy very often. 

And if the spleen is so small that you can’t feel it on physical exam, it probably isn’t clinically meaningful anyway in terms of something to treat. It might be there, but it doesn’t really change things too much.   

Katherine Banwell:

How often should patients have a bone marrow biopsy? 

Dr. Scandura:

So, I’ll answer there is no standard in terms of monitoring for myelofibrosis with the marrow or otherwise. My personal approach is I do a marrow when I think it’s going to help medical decision-making. And so, for a patient who’s got early myelofibrosis, who’s been very stable, responding well to therapy, that could be three, five years between marrow exams. 

For somebody who’s being considered for a clinical trial, oftentimes, a marrow exam is required before they start on the clinical trial and at various intervals afterwards. If there’s somebody who had been stable and something is changing, like the blood counts are changing or his symptoms are changing, or any of a number of clinical features, then I might look in the marrow to see what’s happening there, to see if explains and can help guide a treatment approach to help people feel better. So, there is no single standard, but my personal approach is to do a bone marrow exam when I think it’s going to help make a decision.  

What Are the Treatment Options for Myelofibrosis?

What Are the Treatment Options for Myelofibrosis? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

When choosing a treatment for myelofibrosis (MF), where do you start? Dr. Laura Michaelis reviews the available options for MF therapy, including a discussion of stem cell transplant. 

Dr. Laura Michaelis is hematologist specializing in myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) at Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin, where she also serves as Associate Professor of Medicine. Learn more about Dr. Michaelis here.


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Transcript:

Dr. Michaelis:                       

So, myelofibrosis is among the most aggressive of the myeloproliferative neoplasms. And yet, it still has a broad swath of risk associated with it. And that means that compared to essential thrombocythemia and polycythemia vera, myelofibrosis – primary myelofibrosis tends to be more aggressive and needs to be treated more aggressively.

There are a group of patients who have what we call low-risk or even intermediate 1 risk myelofibrosis who don’t need treatment – who can be followed, whose blood counts can be checked, who can be regularly seen by their doctor, and who can avoid treatment for some period of time, depending on their risk factors.

And so, if you’re diagnosed with primary myelofibrosis, the first question is do I need treatment? And the second question – if the answer to that is yes, then you have to figure out why you need treatment. There is currently only one intervention that is known to be curative in myelofibrosis, and that’s the use of stem cell transplant.

Stem cell transplant, which is also called bone marrow transplant or allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant, is basically a procedure where a donor is able to have their stem cells collected. And then the recipient, who’s the person with the myelofibrosis, undergoes a series of chemotherapy treatments to basically wipe out the bone marrow that they have. And it’s then replaced, using basically a blood transfusion of the stem cells of someone else, which then grow up into the recipient.

This has been shown to be safe in myelofibrosis – well, relatively safe – if done in the right person, who’s relatively fit, and done at the right stage of disease. It’s not a procedure that everybody can tolerate. People need to be pretty fit. And it should be performed at a place that has done numerous transplants for myelofibrosis since it’s a relatively complicated form of stem cell transplant. That being said, in the right person at the right time, it’s an excellent opportunity and option for these patients.

Now in patients who can’t tolerate transplant or where that’s not the right step to go, we have medications. And those medications can sometimes delay the worsening of symptoms. They can certainly control spleen size, improve people’s quality of life, and often improve survival. And the medications that we’re talking about here are called JAK-STAT inhibitors.

And the first approved, and the one that’s most commonly used, is a medicine called ruxolitinib.

This is an oral pill – a pill that you take twice a day and has excellent data that supports that it shrinks the spleen in people with myelofibrosis, that it improves symptoms. And in people with advanced polycythemia vera, decreases the blood count without leading to iron deficiency and also improves symptoms and spleen size.

There’s another JAK-STAT inhibitor that’s approved. That’s a medicine called fedratinib. And it was recently approved in people who had progressed off of myelofibrosis or even in people – or after ruxolitinib or in people who – instead of taking ruxolitinib.

Now in essential thrombocythemia, polycythemia vera, and other times even myelofibrosis, we have other treatments that are commonly used that can be exceedingly helpful in controlling symptoms and blood counts. Those include, for example, hydroxyurea, pegylated interferon, and sometimes treatments aimed at helping anemia, like steroids or derivatives of thalidomide.

And finally, I don’t want to let this end without saying that clinical trials are often an excellent possibility for patients with these conditions, like myelofibrosis.

So, when you are contemplating starting a treatment, it’s really important to ask your physician whether or not there’s any clinical trials that are right for you. 

MPN Terms Defined: What is Leukocytosis? What is Anemia?

MPN Terms Defined: What is Leukocytosis? What is Anemia? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Physician assistant, Lindsey Lyle, provides definitions for leukocytosis and MPN-related anemia, both commonly used terms when discussing myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs).

Lindsey Lyle is a physician assistant at the University of Colorado Cancer Center, specializing in hematological malignancies with a subspecialty in myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs). More about this expert here.

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Transcript:

Lindsey:

There are a few terms that often come up. No. 1 is “leukocytosis.” This often is a term that’s thrown around, especially in relation to myelofibrosis and also polycythemia vera, and this term means an elevated white blood cell count. That is a common thing that, as medical providers, we may just throw around in the room and not necessarily think about the fact that we should explain that a little bit better.

Additionally, “anemia” is a term very often used when talking about myelofibrosis, and that just means a decrease in red blood cells.

Often, people associate anemia with iron deficiency because this is probably the most common form of anemia, but as it relates to MPNs – and specifically, myelofibrosis – it is generally a problem with production that does not have anything to do with iron, but is actually more so just related to the disease and how the red blood cells are impaired because of the fibrosis of the bone marrow.