Tag Archive for: molecular profiling
Elevate | What You Should Know About Your Role in AML Treatment and Care Decisions
Elevate | What You Should Know About Your Role in AML Treatment and Care Decisions from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
How can you elevate your AML care and treatment? AML expert Dr. Gail Roboz discusses the importance of participating in AML treatment decisions, reviews key factors that may impact therapy options, and shares advice for advocating for yourself.
Dr. Gail Roboz is director of the Clinical and Translational Leukemia Programs and professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and the New York Presbyterian Hospital. Learn more about Dr. Roboz.
Related Resources:
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Thriving With AML | Advice for Setting Goals and Making Treatment Decisions |
Expert Advice | Managing AML Symptoms and Treatment Side Effects |
Transcript:
Katherine Banwell:
Hello, and welcome. I’m your host, Katherine Banwell. It’s no secret that the quality-of-care patients receive can vary, and patients who are educated about their condition and involved in their care may have improved outcomes. That’s why the Patient Empowerment Network created the Elevate series, to help AML patients and their care partners feel well-informed when making treatment decisions with their healthcare team.
In today’s program, an AML expert will join us to share advice for accessing better overall care. Before we get into the discussion, please remember that this program is not a substitute for seeking medical advice. Please refer to your healthcare team about what might be best for you. Well, let’s meet our guest today. Joining us is Dr. Gail Roboz. Dr. Roboz, would you please introduce yourself?
Dr. Gail Roboz:
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Gail Roboz. I’m a professor of medicine and director of the clinical and translational leukemia programs at Weill Cornell Medicine and the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. Thank you again for having me.
Katherine Banwell:
Well, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate it. I’d like to start by discussing your role as a researcher. You’re on the frontlines for advancements in the AML field. What led you here, and why is it important to you?
Dr. Gail Roboz:
So, I’m actually asked that question quite frequently, because AML is a challenging, difficult, scary disease, and people don’t necessarily assume that somebody in medical school would gravitate toward it.
But I have to say that what is incredibly fascinating back then and now about leukemia is the continuous access to the disease. Patients will maybe giggle or groan as I’m saying that, because you can get a blood sample really anytime. You can even get a bone marrow sample anytime, although patients don’t enjoy that so much.
But from a research perspective, it is absolutely extraordinary to be dealing with a disease where you can, in real time, truly run back and forth to a laboratory and see what’s happening, what is the new drug or the old drug doing, what’s happening with the patient, and I would say that from a fascination of a medical student perspective that grabbed me then and still does today.
Katherine Banwell:
When it comes to choosing therapy for AML, it’s important to work with your healthcare team to identify what will work best for you, the patient. So, I’d like to know how you define shared decision-making.
Dr. Gail Roboz:
The problem with AML sometimes is that it can be such an acute, emergency-type of presentation and urgent decision-making that I think your question is almost right out of the gate for some patients that will, “Wait, I don’t even have a minute, here. How do I build a team, do the research, look online if people are telling me that I’m in the middle of an emergency?”
That isn’t always the case for acute leukemia, but it sometimes is. I think that what happens in AML in particular for patients is a building of knowledge and a building of the team, and figuring out, first of all, where am I when I am being told this diagnosis, and is it really an emergency? Do I have to make decisions really right now, because is it life-threatening today, I don’t have time to look around? Or do I have a minute to pause and get more information?
I definitely feel that with the Internet era and with so much connection between doctors and teams, there is much more ability to reach out instantaneously for doctors, too, to get advice on a patient who might be in a smaller hospital that doesn’t have AML experience. But I think that the first thing is to try to figure out very, very quickly, what needs to happen to me as a patient immediately, and what can wait a minute, so that I can figure out what am I being told, and what are my options?
Katherine Banwell:
Right, right. It can be confusing for patients, just finding out this new information. Part of making care decisions is setting goals. What are AML treatment goals, and how are they determined?
Dr. Gail Roboz:
I would say that leaving cure on the table from the beginning is always a good place to start, because you want to figure out, first of all, what am I dealing with? What are the actual options?
But when AML strikes, and a patient who has multiple medical conditions or comorbidities that are truly compromising function independently of the diagnosis of AML, that’s going to be a special path of what is actually reasonable for someone who is terribly medically ill or otherwise frail right from the beginning? That can be defining goals, but I think from the beginning, the best thing is to leave everything on the table. What can actually be done to make me better, first of all, to get me out of my immediate trouble? What can be done to make me better, and if I’m getting better, well, I like that, how do I stay there?
What can be done to hang on to the state of ‘better,’ which is sometimes defined as remission? In AML, the goal is to get the bone marrow working again, functioning again, get rid of the acute emergency problem, if there is one, which there may or may not be in acute leukemia.
Sometimes it’s truly an emergency, and sometimes it isn’t. But once I get better, can I stay there? What is required to keep me with a working bone marrow for as long as possible?
But once you are starting to sort through the diagnosis, you realize that saying that somebody has acute myeloid leukemia is not telling me nearly enough information. This is a disease that is what we call biologically heterogeneous, which means there are lots of different forms. It’s like saying you’re sick. What exactly does that mean? There are lots of things that can make you sick. There are lots of different subtypes of AML, and fairly quickly in most institutions, we start getting back some information specifically on the subtype and biological characteristics of the disease.
This can be very, very important in the initial treatment planning, and depending on where you are, the information that you get back can sometimes take 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, a week. So, you start learning very quickly though that, “If I’m not in a complete emergency that requires instantaneous treatment, can I get back more information about the biological subtype of the disease so that I can start treatment planning of what is my best option right out of the gate?” That’s usually called induction, or the first therapy that you’re going to get with the goal, ‘getting rid of leukemia cells and getting into remission.’ That’s part one, and then everything that comes after that is about keeping you in remission.
But for the initial goal, what is the therapy that the patient needs to get to get into remission? In order to figure that out, the good news is there are a lot of different ways to slice and dice getting into remission, and actually, it used to be such a weighty decision.
Now, I would actually encourage people to – not relax, you can never use the word ‘relax’ with acute leukemia. But there are several different induction strategies for most patients that would be okay.
So, even if you get started with one strategy and you hear five days later that another doctor might do something different, there are a lot of ways to safely get into remission. I think everybody should be pleased about the fact that we’re doing much better than we used to for patients across the board, all the way from children to much older adults, to safely getting people into remission.
Katherine Banwell:
Right. So, what sort of factors then do you take into consideration when you’re choosing a therapy?
Dr. Gail Roboz:
So, out of the gate, there are the patients that I think I referred to earlier who truly, truly are in situations based on their other diseases that there are certain treatments we would just cross out right out of the gate.
If there are patients with very, very severely compromised cardiac or renal or lung function or are terribly ill from other conditions, AML doctors will right out of the gate for those patients eliminate certain treatments. But absent that scenario, what we try to look for is the biology of the disease. Not look at the age, not look at the comorbidities unless they are so severe that they make obvious certain choices.
But rather, what I like to do is say, “What kind of AML is this, and what is the best treatment that I have to get this patient into remission?” And then ask the question, “can this particular patient handle this therapy?” Sometimes, these days, there actually may be more than one route to get to remission depending on the biology of the disease, and then, if that’s the case, then I can start getting picky and look at the individual patient. Where does the patient live? Who’s the patient’s family? What other diseases has the patient been treated for?
Is there something that I can use? If I have a choice, if there are a couple of different things that might work, how do I fit the treatment to best take care of the needs of this particular patient? If I don’t have choices, then my question is, “Okay, how do I get this patient through my one therapy that I think is the truly, truly best option?”
Katherine Banwell:
Okay. I’d like to turn to test results for a moment. What sort of tests should be done following an AML diagnosis?
Dr. Gail Roboz:
We often generally recommend a bone marrow biopsy, even if we know we can make the diagnosis from a blood test, because even though the bone marrow biopsy is not the most fun test in the world, it does offer better information for follow-up care than what you can get initially from the blood.
So, every once in a while, we do have a patient for whom a bone marrow biopsy itself for whatever reason can’t be done. But almost always, we need a bone marrow biopsy, and on that biopsy, you’re going to look under the microscope and see what the cells look like. You’re going to get back standard testing, which is called flow cytometry, which is going to tell the difference between what are the different cells that you’re seeing under the microscope.
But then you’re actually going to get progressively much more fancy testing, including things called chromosomes or cytogenetics, and then ultimately, the majority of patients, if at all possible, will be having mutational testing to identify certain subgroups of AML that benefit from very particular treatments. Next-generation sequencing, PCR, fusion proteins, FISH, cytogenetics, I can go on and on with all kinds of terminology that is very confusing, even to hematology fellows, let alone to patients.
Usually, we use a combination of tests to decide, “Is this patient likely to be able to be cured with chemotherapy alone, or might this patient benefit from a stem cell transplant from somebody else after they go into remission?”
That’s basically what the prognostic scoring systems used to be asking, but now it’s a lot more complicated than that. Because even in the favorable categories, even in the adverse categories, where there used to be very little subtlety, now there is a lot of subtlety.
It’s all about defining getting into remission, and what do I give you once you’re in remission to keep you there? It’s no longer this windshield wiper thing of good, bad, transplant, no transplant. There’s a lot more to AML than there used to be.
Katherine Banwell:
I’d like to add that if you, the viewer, are interested in learning more about AML testing and treatment, PEN has a number of resources available for you. You can find these at powerfulpatients.org/AML, or by scanning the QR code on your screen.
Before we get into specific treatment types, Dr. Roboz, would you provide a brief explanation of the phases of therapy for AML? You mentioned induction therapy earlier. Would you tell us what that is?
Dr. Gail Roboz:
Yeah. So, here, too, I have to say that it’s more confusing than it used to be for the following reasons. So, historically and currently, we typically talk about induction as the first therapy that you’re going to get to get into remission.
Then, the treatment paradigm is you do something to get into remission; do some treatment to get into remission. After that, in the realm of post-remission therapy, there are different things that can happen. There can be something called consolidation, which might be another round of chemotherapy. Some patients get consolidation, some patients don’t. After consolidation, there can be a transplant.
So, you get into remission, you may or may not get a little bit of what’s called consolidation chemotherapy, and then go on to a transplant.
However, sometimes either after the transplant or after chemotherapy before ever getting or instead of ever getting a transplant, there might be ongoing treatment in a lower intensity ongoing basis that is called maintenance.
So, you’ve got to think about it as induction as what happens first, consolidation is something that happens when you’re in remission, and then maintenance usually refers to ongoing therapy that is different from consolidation.
It’s usually lower intensity, easier to take, oral types of treatment that may go on and on. And just to be incredibly confusing, it’s different from something like breast cancer, where often the patients are given, “You get six cycles of this, and then you’re done.” From AML, there’s actually often not that type of an obvious plan right out of the gate for the patient.
The answer will be, “It depends.” It depends. It depends how your treatment looks at this point in time. It depends how you look at this point in time.
So then, the patients say, “Well, aren’t you going to cure me of this? What are you doing? Aren’t you going to get rid of it?” So, historically, there are some patients who get cured with chemotherapy. They get chemotherapy to get into remission, they get some chemotherapy afterwards, and there’s a cure rate for some patients with that. The majority of patients who are cured with AML get an allotransplant, or a transplant from somebody else.
Then there’s a whole group of patients where we’re asking the question now, is it possible to get those patients beyond five years – so in oncology, five years is typically defined as cure. Can we get some patients with ongoing therapy to that past-five-year mark without a transplant? That’s in the zone of the ‘coming soon.’ Don’t have a ton of patients in that group right now, but hopefully we will.
Katherine Banwell:
You’ve mentioned some various treatment types that are used to treat AML. Can you share a brief overview of available treatments?
Dr. Gail Roboz:
So, the terminology that we use is a little bit annoying, because it is a little bit general. We say intensive and not intensive.
But historically, intensive chemotherapy referred to a combination of generally two types of agents, cytarabine (Cytosar-U) and an anthracycline, which is a class of chemotherapy, that either just those two together or in combination with sometimes a third or a fourth drug usually keeps people in the hospital for around a month. Not that the chemotherapy takes that long, but the treatment gets rid of basically a lot of cells in the bone marrow, good guys and bad guys, and it takes about three weeks for those normal cells to recover.
So, a standard intensive induction for AML is often around three to four weeks in the hospital, somewhere between three and five or so days of chemotherapy up front, depending on exactly what the protocol is. The classic regimen is actually still called 3+7, three days of one drug, seven of the other. But there are many variations of that that work.
The chemo is then stopped, the patient hangs out in the hospital, very frequently getting transfusions and antibiotics, and we wait for the bone marrow to recover.
Another current path that many patients are getting – almost all older patients, with ‘older’ being defined not by a specific age cutoff, but often 75 and older, almost everybody agrees no longer gets the classic chemotherapy that I just described. At some institutions, that 75 is going down, and even 70 and 65 and above are getting a new type of therapy, mostly because the new type of therapy is working pretty well. That is a combination of something called a hypomethylating agent.
Drugs like azacitidine (Vidaza, Onureg) or decitabine (Dacogen) in combination with a pill that has changed the landscape of AML more than any other called venetoclax (Venclexta). Venetoclax is a drug that is not exclusively used for AML.
It actually was originally approved for another type of leukemia. But I think that not many people would argue with the statement that what has changed absolutely the face of AML treatment has been this drug, because it’s a BCL2 inhibitor. What it does is it actually – cancer cells and leukemia cells in particular are very, very good at staying alive.
They don’t undergo cell death, they don’t want to die, and venetoclax brings down their forcefield so that those cells can actually undergo apoptosis and die.
Venetoclax in combination with azacitidine or decitabine has transformed the care of the disease, because many patients older than 65 – and the median age of diagnosis of AML is around 68 to 70. So, many patients never were well enough to have the intensive therapy. They weren’t going into remission, and they weren’t having prolonged survival often beyond a few months.
But now, those patients do actually much better with the combination of aza [azacitidine] and venetoclax. So typically, the induction path is going to be deciding who gets an intensive therapy backbone, usually associated with long hospitalization. Who gets a less intensive backbone – by the way, that is often associated with just the same hospitalization. So, that’s why I don’t love the term ‘low intensity,’ because that implies that it doesn’t work.
It does, and it also implies that you’re not going to be in the hospital. You probably will, because in the same way as for the more so-called intensive therapies, getting into remission involves getting rid of bone marrow cells and waiting for the normal ones to recover. Even if you are a patient who is getting the venetoclax combined with the azacitidine or decitabine, which is typically called low intensity, you may very well be in the hospital for a month.
Because depending on where you live and who your family is and how sick you might be, you will probably want us to watch you carefully during that first month, but it’s worth it. Because if you have a good chance of getting into remission, remission is what makes life better and life longer. So, we want to get patients into remission, even if it means upfront time in the hospital.
Katherine Banwell:
You mentioned one inhibitor as targeted therapy, but there are a couple of others. Would you briefly tell us about those?
Dr. Gail Roboz:
So, over the years recently, we have identified certain specific targets in AML which are resulting in the addition of medications on these standard backbones. So, the target for venetoclax is something called BCL2, and actually, venetoclax probably makes all chemotherapy better. It’s kind of a controversial statement, but I’m going to stand by it. But in AML, it has been shown that the addition of venetoclax to lots of different backbones makes them work better. There are other things to hit, though.
For example, there are patients with AML who have something called a FLT3, F-L-T-3 mutation. This mutation also has specific inhibitors that are FDA-approved drugs that target specifically the FLT3 mutation, and if you have one of those, your doctor may add on a FLT3 inhibitor to either a lower intensity or an intensive backbone. Similarly, there are agents called IDH inhibitors. There are IDH1 and IDH2 inhibitors.
If I start getting into isocitrate dehydrogenase pathways on this webinar, I think everybody will click off, because it’s certainly bored all of the medical students in med school, and it’s pretty tough to understand. But the bottom line is it’s very cool stuff because that boring pathway in medical school that nobody really thought about too much is actually part of very, very, central cellular functions that are a vulnerability now that have been identified in leukemic cells that, if you hit them with these specific inhibitors, patients do better.
Now, couple of things for patients. It doesn’t mean that it’s better to have a FLT3 or an IDH mutation because the targeted therapies are available. So, a lot of patients are disappointed when they don’t have mutations. I don’t want you to think in that way. It’s not that it’s better, it’s different.
It identifies a different biology. If you have certain mutations, there are certain medications that may help you more.
That’s why I think the patients are learning quickly, too, to ask the doc – they may not remember the letters of the alphabet soup, but “Do I have something about my AML that can get one of these targeted therapies added on?” I think is a good question to think about. “Do I have something about my disease that has a specific drug that we’ve already learned makes outcomes better?”
Katherine Banwell:
There’s a new emerging therapy as well. Is it the menin inhibitor?
Dr. Gail Roboz:
I think that, in understanding different targets and different pathways, it leads me to a general statement that if you can get yourself potentially onto a clinical trial at an academic center, that is something to consider right out of the gate. Because there is a lot, a lot, a lot going on in this field right now.
What we are hoping, and the reason that I am talking to you about venetoclax and FLT3 inhibitors and IDH inhibitors, is because of all the patients who jumped onto those clinical trials and proved that those drugs are better. Some of them are my patients! I was fortunate on some of those early trials to have some real winners in patients who got onto the trials. They’re the ones who drove the success.
So, for example, menin inhibitors, which are very, very exciting, targeted agents for NPM1 and KMT2A mutations and rearrangements – these are complicated to remember as a patient, but there’s a cool drug out there that might be for you. I think that patients who really think about asking the question wherever they are, the “Hey, I just got a diagnosis of AML. Is there a clinical trial that might look good for me?” I think is a great question to ask pretty much out of the gate.
Katherine Banwell:
The symptoms of AML as well as the side effects of certain medications can vary greatly among patients. So, how do you approach symptom management with your patients?
Dr. Gail Roboz:
Patients will giggle because I repeat this line. You have to be afraid of the disease, not the treatment. I think that if you read the package insert on a Tylenol, you’re certainly not going to think you’re going to live for more than 20 minutes if you take one of those. You can certainly appreciate that, with chemotherapy drugs and including some of the novel agents that I’m talking about, if you read package inserts and look at some of the signs and symptoms and things that can happen, it’s extraordinarily overwhelming.
I think that a lot of what I do for patients is I keep them close. Because if the patient is in the hospital or coming in very frequently in clinic, I think that that everyday assessment of, “What are you experiencing?” and “What can I tell you is the disease’s fault, and what can I tell you is the medication’s fault?” is so, so important.
Especially in the newly diagnosed patients, where the disease is active. Of course, we want to try to minimize anything that we can do to make the process better for patients, more comfortable for patients, but there are certain things that we do tell people, “You’ve got to slug through this particular problem, because this is the disease’s fault.” This is different from a patient in remission, where they might be getting ongoing therapy with something, or we say, “Hey, wait a minute. You’d be feeling fine, except now you’re taking this medication. How do we minimize messing up quality of life in remission?”
Because we want you to feel great when you’re in remission. I think the real answer of that is to have a really close collaboration with the healthcare team, and for the patients to really understand – I repeat this because it’s so important. What is the disease’s fault, and what is the treatment’s fault? If there’s something that is therapy-related, do I have a substitute or do I not have a substitute?
Because if the drug is essential to get us where we need to go, well, what can we do to manage comfort and to manage symptoms until you get to the place where your marrow is working again?
Katherine Banwell:
That’s great advice, Dr. Roboz. I would like to get to an audience question that we received prior to the program. This one comes from Johanna. “How can I better understand my lab test results? What questions should I be asking my provider about those results?”
Dr. Gail Roboz:
One of the things that I would say to patients is to be careful when interpreting your own results, because I really am not exaggerating to say that patients have had absolute trauma looking at things that I look at it and say, “Oh, this looks great.” So, the first thing is, be careful being your own doctor.
The second thing though is that the author of the question has to understand that there’s going to be a tsunami of data coming in with respect to AML treatment. Sometimes in the hospital on a daily basis when you’re in the middle of an induction, there is a true – tsunami is the right word – a deluge of data, and you have to work with your team to say, “What am I following here? What’s important at this phase in my treatment? What’s the number I’m looking at?” Patients sometimes tell me, “I don’t want to know any of this,” and I’m fine with that.
I think it’s actually okay. Sometimes patients will say, “Give me guidance,” and I will be specific. Because you can actually have a leukemia induction patient where every single laboratory value is abnormal. They might be getting pushed to a device, in the morning, sitting in the hospital on your iPad, 50 abnormal results. You’re trying to battle back the disease and be positive and advocate for yourself, but there are 50 abnormal results in front of you.
I think you have to really work with the team to say, “What am I looking at today? What are the numbers that are the really important ones? There are 50 abnormal ones here; everything is getting a yellow or a red light in this. How do I go through this?”
And to appreciate, also, that at different points in the treatment, the beginning of treatment induction post-remission therapy, you’re looking for different things. So, work with your team so that you’re not assessing every single result with equivalent weight, because I think you’re going to stress yourself out.
Katherine Banwell:
That’s great advice, Dr. Roboz. Thank you. As we close out the program, I’d like to find out what you would like to leave the audience with. Why are you hopeful?
Dr. Gail Roboz:
AML is changing incredibly rapidly. And I can tell you it is a lot more fun to be an AML doctor now than it used to be, with respect to what I am offering for patients. We have always fought really, really hard to have our wins, but we’re winning more. I do think that it is a complicated space to navigate for patients, but there is room for a lot of optimism.
I think we are getting patients transplanted – patients that we never thought would ever go through a transplant or getting transplanted. Patients who never had a chance of even living more than six or eight months or living much longer than that. Is it perfect? No. Do we have as many cures as we want?
No, but there’s a lot going on. I think if patients feel that excitement, they will also feel the need to ask about those clinical trials. Because I think that for a lot of patients, clinical trials is an area where they would be worried. They’re not sure that they want to. “I don’t want to be a guinea pig,” and yet here I can say in the AML space, one after another after another drug approvals in the last several years, with the patients on those trials being awfully happy that they participated.
So, I think that it’s a very, very terrifying diagnosis. There’s nothing that I can do to take the sting out of that. But try to find yourself in an optimistic place with options that are being offered to the very, very, very best that we can do. There are patients who are listening, I’m sure, who have relapsed or refractory disease who are not feeling that optimism.
I want to address you specifically, because we don’t have enough yet. We’re trying. When you have AML that has come back or come back multiply, that’s dangerous and difficult. But for those patients in particular, try really hard to get onto clinical trials. If the drugs that we have out there – if you’ve already taken them and they haven’t worked for you or if they’re not serving you well, if you’re in good shape and the drugs that we have aren’t good enough, well, let’s see if we can get you on something that’s investigational.
Katherine Banwell:
Dr. Roboz, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today.
Dr. Gail Roboz:
Thank you for having me.
Katherine Banwell:
I also want to thank all of our collaborators. To learn more about AML and to access tools to help you become a proactive patient, visit powerfulpatients.org. I’m Katherine Banwell. Thanks for joining us today.
How Has Advanced Prostate Cancer Treatment Evolved?
How Has Advanced Prostate Cancer Treatment Evolved? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
How has the advanced prostate cancer research landscape evolved? Expert Dr. Rana McKay discusses how prostate cancer treatment options have expanded and how PSMA PET imaging has revolutionized detection.
Dr. Rana McKay is an associate clinical professor of medicine at Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health. Learn more about Dr. McKay.
See More from Evolve Prostate Cancer
Related Resources:
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When Should Prostate Cancer Patients Consider a Clinical Trial? |
Overcoming Barriers | Advice for Accessing Prostate Cancer Clinical Trials |
Transcript:
Katherine:
Dr. McKay, I’d like to have you tell us how the landscape of advanced prostate cancer has changed over your career.
Dr. McKay:
Oh, my goodness. It has absolutely rapidly evolved over the last decade. I think when I was just starting my career, it was right around the time where abiraterone (Zytiga) and enzalutamide (Xtandi) were being heavily tested and just getting approved and entering into the clinic.
And as we think about all of the evolution that’s happened since that time, we now have multiple androgen receptor pathway inhibitors in the clinic. We have radioligand therapies in the clinic, radium-223. The first radioligand therapy across any solid tumor malignancy to improve overall survival and on the heels of that, most recently, lutetium PSMA, which is a targeted radioligand therapy.
There are several different kinds of chemotherapies, and I think two more diagnostics have evolved. We are now integrating molecular profiling across multiple areas in the disease natural history and actually have several FDA-approved treatments based off of results of molecular profiling, whether that be germline hereditary testing or just tumor testing like, PARP inhibitors and immunotherapy.
And then, additionally, to kind of continue on that same thought of our diagnostics changing is one of the greatest disruptors in our treatment of prostate cancer has been the introduction of PSMA PET imaging that has really revolutionized our ability to be able to detect disease at lower levels of PSA.
And that’s opened up options for focal therapy, radiation therapy, and other sorts of strategies. So, it’s really been just remarkable, all of the different advances that have occurred in prostate cancer over the last decade.
Head and Neck Cancer Research | How Innovation Leads to Advances in Care
Head and Neck Cancer Research | How Innovation Leads to Advances in Care from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
How can innovation lead to head and neck cancer research advances? Expert Dr. Ezra Cohen discusses how improvements in technology have led to changes in diagnostics, therapeutics, surgery, and radiation.
Dr. Ezra Cohen is a medical oncologist, head and neck cancer researcher and Chief Medical Officer of Oncology at Tempus Labs.
See More from Evolve Head & Neck Cancer
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Head and Neck Cancer | Key Factors Affecting Treatment Decisions |
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Transcript:
Katherine:
How are innovations in technologies accelerating head and neck cancer research?
Dr. Cohen:
I think, in many ways. First there’s – we mentioned the multidisciplinary approach of head and neck cancer and each of the disciplines, the major therapeutic disciplines, being medical oncology, radiation and surgery, really have had dramatic technological advances in the last, certainly in the last decade, maybe a little bit longer.
For the surgery, it’s been the ability to do minimally invasive surgery, usually through a robot called transoral resection. And this is, as the name implies, literally a robot that’s controlled at the side of the operating room or even sometimes controlled remotely. But the advantage is that the instrument is much smaller than the human hand, and it can articulate in every degree possible. Which, obviously, the human hand has restrictions.
So, in other words, that robot can get into places and get into areas that would be very difficult without a much bigger surgery if done without the robot. And now, that surgery called TORS, transoral robotic surgery, has become pretty well, pretty standard for cancers of the base of the tongue and the oral pharynx.
That is really the back of the throat. Whereas in the past, in order to access those areas, the patient’s jaw would have to have been split, and the area had been opened. Now, that’s not necessary at all, and the surgery has turned into a much, much faster recovery with equivalent oncologic outcomes. And, of course, there’s more advancements going on in that regard.
For radiation, I think the most relevant technological advances have been the ability to focus radiation through different means on the tumor and spare normal tissue. Whether that’s with something called IMRT, which is essentially a much more sophisticated way to deliver radiation that is controlled by a computer that allows the radiation fields to be contoured around structures in a 3D fashion, much more than we were able to do prior to that.
And, of course, the other way is to use a different type of energy. Whereas conventional radiation, when we talk about radiation, we’re talking about photons. Protons, now, are becoming more widely available. And that particle has a different way to deliver energy and can actually spare normal tissue but still deliver the energy desired to the tumor. So, tremendous advances in radiation.
And then, of course, for medical oncologists, we’ve had advancements in both diagnostics and in therapeutics. 10 years ago, sequencing a cancer, deciphering the genes that drive it, the mutations that drive it, was uncommon. And, in fact, even I dare say, frowned upon by the community.
But now, there isn’t a patient that I see who has recurrent or metastatic disease that I don’t sequence. I sequence them all.
Katherine:
Wow.
Dr. Cohen:
Because the technology is readily available and quite honestly, it gives us more information that we might be able to apply to the treatment of that patient. So, that’s been a very large, a very big advancement. And then, of course, therapeutically we’ve had different agents that we’ve been able to look at. I mentioned immunotherapy. There are many new drugs that are being tested and hopefully very soon even approved for patients with head and neck cancer.
Thriving With AML | Advice for Setting Goals and Making Treatment Decisions
Thriving With AML | Advice for Setting Goals and Making Treatment Decisions from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
When facing an acute myeloid leukemia (AML) diagnosis, treatment decisions may feel overwhelming. AML specialist Dr. Alice Mims shares expert guidance for setting treatment goals with your team, advice for making care decisions, and explains how tests results may impact choices.
Dr. Alice Mims is a hematologist specializing in acute and chronic myeloid conditions. Dr. Mims serves as the Acute Leukemia Clinical Research Director at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – James. Learn more about Dr. Mims.
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Transcript:
Katherine Banwell:
One part of thriving with AML is finding a treatment approach that manages your disease and fits with your lifestyle. Before we talk about therapy, can you tell us how treatment goals are established for an individual patient?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, for individual patients, I think it’s very important that there is an initial discussion that doesn’t feel too shortened that you can have time with your care team to really go into depth about the diagnosis, about the specifics of your particular subtype of acute myeloid leukemia, understanding the treatment options, and then being given time allowed to reflect on all of that information. So, then you can come back and have your questions better answered that may come from that initial discussion.
And then help you with your team make a decision based on that information that works best for you.
Katherine Banwell:
Outside of patient preference, what other factors do you take into account when working with a patient to decide on a treatment plan?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, there are multiple different factors that we try to take into account. Again, yeah, most importantly what patients’ goals are like you mentioned, but those include overall health, including different comorbidities, so what other healthcare diagnoses, medications are you taking, what are the patients’ age, thinking about that for long-term goals, overall support from loved ones, family to — just because care can be really involved. And then in particular, thinking about specific features of that individual patient’s AML, including molecular, genetic features of the leukemia.
Katherine Banwell:
Well, let’s talk more in depth about the test results you just mentioned.
What is the test for genetic markers? And how is it conducted?
Dr. Alice Mims:
So, there are a few different tests that we use under that scope of genetic markers. So, those include looking at chromosomal abnormalities of the DNA. So, with cytogenetics, and then also more specific prose where we call FISH testing. And then also we look for specific gene mutations through next-generation sequencing, or PCR testing. And so, we use all of those results together to give us the most information we can about that individual’s leukemia.
Katherine Banwell:
How has molecular testing revolutionized AML care?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Oh gracious. It’s really done such – so much for leukemia. And just things are so different even where they were five years ago because of having molecular mutations, that information available.
So, it helps with discussing prognosis. So, we know that different molecular features can tell us about curative intent and what are the treatment steps we would need to take to give the best chance long-term. And then also now, we’ve evolved to where we have directed therapies that can target mutations or the proteins that arise from those mutations with therapeutic options.
Katherine Banwell:
Is this testing standard following an AML diagnosis?
Dr. Alice Mims:
It is standard following an AML diagnosis. That’s recommended within all of the guidelines with patients and really should be done for all patients at initial diagnosis.
Katherine Banwell:
Can genetic markers or mutations change over time? For example, if a patient relapses, should molecular testing be done again?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Yes, absolutely. Mutations can evolve. It’s something we call clonal evolution of the leukemia.
And so you can have mutations that could be present at diagnosis that may no longer be present. Or the opposite can occur where you have new mutations that can appear. And that can lead to different options for treatment. So, it’s very important to retest at time of relapse.
Katherine Banwell:
What advice do you have for patients who want to ensure that they’ve actually undergone molecular testing? What questions should they be asking their healthcare team?
Dr. Alice Mims:
I think it’s definitely important to bring this up with the healthcare team. And it should be something at diagnosis and relapse to ask, what are the cytogenetics, what do they look like now, what do the gene mutations, and really as mentioned before, it’s so crucial in talking about prognosis, talking about treatment options that if it doesn’t come up, it’s really something that you should take a pause and try to go back to readdress with your team.
PODCAST: Managing Life With AML | What You Should Know About Care and Treatment
What do you need to know when it comes to managing life with acute myeloid leukemia (AML)? In this webinar, Dr. Alice Mims, an AML specialist and researcher, discusses how treatment decisions are made and how test results may impact therapy. Dr. Mims will shares the latest advances in research and key advice for living well with AML.
Dr. Alice Mims is a hematologist specializing in acute and chronic myeloid conditions. Dr. Mims serves as the Acute Leukemia Clinical Research Director at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – James. Learn more about Dr. Mims.
Transcript:
Katherine Banwell:
Hello, and welcome. I’m Katherine Banwell, your host for today. Today’s program is a continuation of our Thrive series. And we’re going to discuss navigating life with AML, and how you can engage in your care. Before we get into the discussion, please remember that this program is not a substitute for seeking medical advice. Please refer to your healthcare team about what might be best for you. Well, joining us today is Dr. Alice Mims.
Dr. Mims, welcome. Would you please introduce yourself?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Yeah, sure. Thank you, Katherine. I’m Alice Mims. I’m a physician and associate professor at Ohio State University. And also, the section head for the myeloid and acute leukemia program within our division of hematology.
Katherine Banwell:
Thank you so much for taking the time to join us today, Dr. Mims. We start all of our webinars in our thrive series with the same question; in your experience, what does it mean to thrive with AML?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure, I think that’s a great question. So, really for me, I think thriving with AML is very patient- or person-dependent. It really depends on making sure that your treatment goals align with your care. And so that means really being an active participant in your diagnosis, understanding the disease process, and making sure that your care team really understands what your overall goals are for your treatment.
Katherine Banwell:
Thank you for that because it helps us to understand as we move through the program today. One part of thriving with AML is finding a treatment approach that manages your disease and fits with your lifestyle. Before we talk about therapy, can you tell us how treatment goals are established for an individual patient?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, for individual patients I think it’s very important that there is an initial discussion that doesn’t feel too shortened that you can have time with your care team to really go into depth about the diagnosis, about the specifics of your particular subtype of acute myeloid leukemia, understanding the treatment options, and then being given time allowed to reflect on all of that information. So, then you can come back and have your questions better answered that may come from that initial discussion.
And then help you with your team make a decision based on that information that works best for you.
Katherine Banwell:
Outside of patient preference, what other factors do you take into account when working with a patient to decide on a treatment plan?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, there are multiple different factors that we try to take into account. Again, yeah most importantly what patients’ goals are like you mentioned, but those include overall health, including different comorbidities, so what other healthcare diagnoses, medications are you taking, what are the patient’s age, thinking about that for long-term goals, overall support from loved ones, family to — just because care can be really involved. And then in particular, thinking about specific features of that individual patient’s AML, including molecular, genetic features of the leukemia.
Katherine Banwell:
Well, let’s talk more in depth about the test results you just mentioned.
What is the test for genetic markers? And how is it conducted?
Dr. Alice Mims:
So, there are a few different tests that we use under that scope of genetic markers. So, those include looking at chromosomal abnormalities of the DNA. So, with cytogenetics, and then also more specific prose where we call FISH testing. And then also we look for specific gene mutations through next generation sequencing, or PCR testing. And so, we use all of those results together to give us the most information we can about that individual’s leukemia.
Katherine Banwell:
How has molecular testing revolutionized AML care?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Oh gracious. It’s really done such – so much for leukemia. And just things are so different even where they were five years ago because of having molecular mutations, that information available.
So, it helps with discussing prognosis. So, we know that different molecular features can tell us about curative intent and what are the treatment steps we would need to take to give the best chance long-term. And then also now, we’ve evolved to where we have directed therapies that can target mutations or the proteins that arise from those mutations with therapeutic options.
Katherine Banwell:
Is this testing standard following an AML diagnosis?
Dr. Alice Mims:
It is standard following an AML diagnosis. That’s recommended within all of the guidelines with patients and really should be done for all patients at initial diagnosis.
Katherine Banwell:
Can genetic markers or mutations change over time? For example, if a patient relapses, should molecular testing be done again?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Yes, absolutely. Mutations can evolve. It’s something we call clonal evolution of the leukemia.
And so you can have mutations that could be present at diagnosis that may no longer be present. Or the opposite can occur where you have new mutations that can appear. And that can lead to different options for treatment. So, it’s very important to retest at time of relapse.
Katherine Banwell:
What advice do you have for patients who want to ensure that they’ve actually undergone molecular testing? What questions should they be asking their healthcare team?
Dr. Alice Mims:
I think it’s definitely important to bring this up with the healthcare team. And it should be something at diagnosis and relapse to ask, what are the cytogenetics, what do they look like now, what do the gene mutations, and really as mentioned before, it’s so crucial in talking about prognosis, talking about treatment options that if it doesn’t come up, it’s really something that you should take a pause and try to go back to readdress with your team.
Katherine Banwell:
I’d like to move on to treatment now, Dr. Mims. And, of course, treatment takes place in phases for AML. The first is induction therapy. Can you start by defining induction therapy for our audience?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, induction therapy is really terminology that we use to talk about initial therapy for someone with a new diagnosis. So, we can have intensive induction therapies, and non-intensive induction therapies. But the goal for either of those types of treatment is to get the leukemia into remission.
So, to talk about that in a little bit more detail, for intensive induction regimens, those typically involve cytotoxic chemotherapy. So, you may hear terminology like, “7 + 3 induction,” or “high-dose cytarabine regimens,” but those are typically more intensive regimens that we use that can have increased side effects but may be very important based off the type of acute leukemia.
And then for non-intensive based regimens, one of the standards has really evolved to be venetoclax (Venclexta) and azacitidine (Vidaza) as a non-intensive regimen that can work very well for a majority of patients. And there are some off shoots of that as well.
Katherine Banwell:
Okay. And when does stem cell transplant come into play?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, stem cell transplant is something that we all think about at the beginning for anyone with a new diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia where as we’re working to get back genomic information about the individual’s acute leukemia, we may go ahead and start looking for different donors, doing typing, just in case that’s something that we need as far as someone’s therapy.
But typically we reserve stem cell transplant for patients who have either intermediate or high-risk features of their AML. Or who may have even favorable respite are not responding as well as we would like when looking at the depth of remission. And so, we always want to be prepared in case that’s something we need to move forward with as part of their care, if the goal of their treatment is for curative intent.
Katherine Banwell:
Let’s talk about what happens after the initial phase of treatment. What’s the purpose of consolidation therapy?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, there are a few different purposes we can use consolidation therapy for. So, for patients – consolidation therapy is used for patients who have achieved remission. And then it’s either to try to hopefully get them cure of their AML. The patients have more favorable risk features of their AML and cure is an option through just chemotherapy alone.
Or it can be used to try to keep people in remission while we’re working to get towards stem cell transplant as that can sometimes take a few months to get a donor ready, have things ready to move forward with transplant.
Katherine Banwell:
And what are the options for consolidation therapy?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, options for consolidated chemotherapy are typically based off of what you had initially for induction chemotherapy. So, if it’s more intensive-based regimens, it typically is consolidation with intensive consolidation, cytarabine based regimens.
For lower intensity regimens, typically consolidation is more continuing therapy on what you started but may have adjustments of the treatment based off of trying to decrease the toxicity now that the patients are in remission.
Katherine Banwell:
And how are patients monitored in consolidation therapy?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, it definitely is based off of the individual’s type of consolidation chemotherapy or treatment. But most patients, if we feel like the treatment is going to lower blood counts, they have bloodwork twice a week, and we’re watching for things, for side effects for treatment, looking out for risk of infection, giving transfusion support, and then if something happens that we feel like we can’t support patients in an outpatient setting, then we’ll get them back into the hospital if they need to for care.
Katherine Banwell:
What side effects are you looking for?
Dr. Alice Mims:
So, most of the side effects with any of the treatments that we give are what we call myelosuppressives. So, it lowers the different types of blood counts.
So, white blood cell count which increases risk of infection, red blood cells, so, side effects or symptoms from anemia. And then risk of bleeding from low platelet counts.
Katherine Banwell:
Okay. Maintenance therapy has become more common in other blood cancers particularly in multiple myeloma. Is there a role for maintenance therapy in AML?
Dr. Alice Mims:
There actually is now, which is something that’s newer that has evolved for acute myeloma leukemia. So, in the context of intensive therapy, we now have oral azacitidine (Onureg), which is a little bit different than some of the IV formulations that we give.
But for patients who receive intensive induction therapy, get into remission and may receive consolidation but are not able to go onto transplant if they have that immediate or higher risk features, there’s FDA approval for oral azacytidine, which has been shown to improve overall survival and keep people in those remissions for longer.
More recently, specifically for patients who have a particular type of mutation called FLT3, if they also receive intensive induction therapy with a FLT3 inhibitor added onto that, then their quizartinib was just recently approved as a maintenance therapy for patients with that particular type of AML.
Katherine Banwell:
Are there emerging AML therapies that patients should know about other than what you just mentioned?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, I think there are a lot of exciting treatments that are up and coming based off of many small molecule inhibitors that are being studied.
One in particular I would mention that everyone’s very excited about is a class of agents called menin inhibitors.
And so that’s an oral agent that has been shown to have responses for patients with relapse or refractory AML who have NMP-1 mutations or have something called KNT2A rearrangements. And seeing responses with just a single agent in the relapse refractory setting, it’s been really exciting. And so, I think we’re hopeful that that may become FDA-approved in the near future. And it’s also now being explored in combination with intensive chemotherapies as well as less intensive induction regimens. And so, maybe we can do a better job without brunt treatment by adding these therapies on.
Katherine Banwell:
That’s exciting news. When it comes to living and thriving with AML, Dr. Mims, managing disease symptoms and treatment side effects is a big part of that.
Would you talk about how symptoms and side effects can impact life with AML?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, I think from my perspective, what we are always trying to do when we’re moving forward with a treatment plan is of course, get patients into remission, but the purpose of getting into remission is not just to achieve that, but for patients to have quality of life. And so, there needs to be continued dialogue between the patient and the treatment team about how you’re feeling during treatment. Because they’re definitely based off of therapy, different side effects, things that could be not necessarily due to active leukemia anymore. And so there may need to be dose adjustments and other things that we do to the regimens in order to make you feel as good as possible while continuing on treatment.
Katherine Banwell:
Why is it so important for patients to speak up about any issues they may be having?
Dr. Alice Mims:
I think it’s important because you’re your own best advocate. Being the patient, being the person who’s living with having this diagnosis and going through the treatment, myself, or other colleagues as physicians, we can have a sense of what may be going on based off of numbers. But we’re not truly going to know how you’re feeling unless you speak up and let us know. And there may be things we could do with supportive medications, dosing adjustments as mentioned, that could help in making you hopefully feel better and less side effects and toxicities from treatment.
Katherine Banwell:
What are some common symptoms and side effects that you hear about?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Okay. Sure. So, different side effects that I would say that people can have, people can feel fatigued just from treatment in general. Some of our therapies can cause neuropathy, skin rashes, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea. And so, all of those are important along as mentioned with symptoms you may have from decreased blood counts that we do have interventions that we could implement to help the – make the therapy more tolerable.
Katherine Banwell:
So, for the side effects like fatigue for example, what do you do about that?
Dr. Alice Mims:
So, I think it depends on the level of fatigue. Of course, we don’t have – I wish we had a pill that could just make fatigue improve. But if it’s really that the treatment is deriving it, and it’s impeding your quality of life there are dose reductions or things we can do that may help with the level of fatigue you’re experiencing.
Katherine Banwell:
And what about some of the other side effects. You mentioned diarrhea.
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure.
Katherine Banwell:
How is that handled?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Yeah. So, for issues from GI complications such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, we have really lots of choices for anti-nausea medicines and different combinations we can use or newer antiemetics that can help with that. And from a diarrhea perspective it depends on the treatment. But of course, we want to make sure first and foremost there’s no infection. And if not, then there are good antidiarrheals we could add on to the regiment to help with that as well.
Katherine Banwell:
Okay. That’s great advice. Thank you. I want to make sure that we get to some of the audience questions. These were sent to us in advance of the program today. Let’s start with this one; Janet wants to know what factors enable a patient to achieve and continue in remission if they are not able to achieve stem cell transplant due to age restrictions.
Dr. Alice Mims:
So, I think first and foremost, I think it’s very important that there — that patients are aware that there shouldn’t be just strict, stringent cutoffs of age as a requirement for stem cell transplant. And really, there’s a lot of research going on that we should take into account. Physiological age, and there’s ways to measure that just to be sure that stem cell transplant really is not an option. And for patients who stem cell transplant is not an option, I think as we talked about earlier, so there can still be really great treatments that can get patients into remission and ongoing therapies with dosing adjustments again to decrease toxicity and improve quality of life and thinking about things like maintenance therapy as appropriate.
Katherine Banwell:
What are the age restrictions, and why are they there?
Dr. Alice Mims:
So, sometimes you will hear age 75.
Really, no one above age 75 should move forward with transplant. And that’s based off of past data where they’ve explored transplant and seen increased toxicity. And from transplant in itself, increased side effects, increased risk of early mortality. And so, I do think it’s important to take the patient as a whole into consideration because again, you could have someone who’s 77 who may be running marathons, and in great shape, and not a lot of other healthcare issues, who may still do really well with treatment. And so, I think that’s – really needs to be taken in account, really the overall picture of health for the patient before making…
Katherine Banwell:
So, the…
Dr. Alice Mims:
…just a firm cutoff.
Katherine Banwell:
Right. Okay. So, it’s not cut and dry.
Dr. Alice Mims:
Exactly.
Katherine Banwell:
If you’re 75 or older, then you definitely can’t have stem cell transplant.
Dr. Alice Mims:
That’s correct.
Katherine Banwell:
Then you’re looking at everyone individually.
Dr. Alice Mims:
Yeah. So, it really should be looked at.
And I still have some patients who will come to me and say, “Oh, I was told I’m 68 years old, I’m not a candidate.” And that always makes me take a step back. And then we kind of have to have that discussion again. And they may still not be a good candidate based off of other comorbidities or healthcare issues, but it shouldn’t just be a number rules you out for having that as an option.
Katherine Banwell:
Good to know. We received this question from Carl, “What does treatment look like following transplant? And what are doctors looking for when monitoring through blood tests?”
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, after transplant, the first three months is pretty intensive of being seen very frequently at your transplant center twice to once a week. You’re also on immunosuppressive medications to try to help prevent issues like graft vs host disease, which can be a complication from transplant.
And then over time if you’re doing well, we try to start tapering off those immunosuppressive regimens to see if you can tolerate that. And what I say to most of my patients for – who are undergoing transplant, it can take some time to really feel back to being yourself. It can take six months, it can take a year or longer. And sometimes your normal is a new normal based off of how you do and the side effects of the transplant in itself. So, you may not go back to if you’re here before transplant and before your diagnosis, it may be that this is your new normal. Just so people can be prepared and know what they’re signing up for.
Katherine Banwell:
And with the blood testing, what are you looking for when you’re monitoring a patient?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. There are a few different things that we’re looking for when monitoring patients. So, one, making sure that the stem cells or the graft from the donor are recovering.
You want to see that blood counts, levels of white blood cells, red blood cells, platelets are getting to normal levels. You’re also assessing and making sure you’re not seeing signs of relapse. You’re checking levels of donor cells versus the patient cells within the stem cell — sorry, within the stem cell compartments. And so, we’re taking all of those into account as well as checking organ function and making sure there’s no signs of potential graft versus host disease as well.
Katherine Banwell:
Katrina sent in this question; do you have any advice for dealing with a general oncologist who does not exactly follow my AML doctor’s recommendations? I see a local oncologist and an AML specialist guides my care.
Dr. Alice Mims:
I think that’s a tough question. And so, I think I’ll answer that if – maybe two different ways.
So, one, I think sometimes it’s hard when you’re the local community oncologist, and you’re there for the day-to-day care. And so there may need to be treatment adjustments and other things that you need to do in that moment or time to help make sure that toxicities are not too severe or are helping the patient as you’re seeing them day-to-day. And it may not be easy to involve the specialist right there in the moment. But I think if there are bigger issues as far as overall goals, overall communication, it should be that both are able to communicate well with each other. They should be able to communicate via email, via text message. That’s what I do with a lot of my community partners. And it’s always important that you as a patient feel confident in your care. And so, if that trust is not there that things are being followed, then it may be important to look and see if there’s another physician who you do feel comfortable with proceeding with your care with.
Katherine Banwell:
And what do you tell patients when they’re not feeling comfortable with their care team or their oncologist or their general oncologist? What do you say to them to give them some confidence to find somebody else who they feel more comfortable with?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, I’ll just say from my perspective. So, if I’m seeing a patient and they may have questions, they may not feel comfortable, they may need more time. And I always think it’s important if you want a second opinion, whether it’s at a specialist level, whether it’s in a community oncology private setting, that should not be offensive to the physician.
If that makes the patient feel more comfortable in what they’re doing with their care, that’s how they should move forward. And it should be what they feel like is best. If a physician takes that personally or is offended by it, I think that’s more of their problem as opposed to anything that you’re doing wrong.
Katherine Banwell:
Okay. Thank you for that. Ryan wants to know; I’m a year and a half post-transplant, how can you tell if the aches and pains in your joints are normal aging, host vs graft disease, the AML returning, or even something else?
Dr. Alice Mims:
So, I think that’s also a difficult question to answer because it really is patient dependent. And so, I think if you’re having new joint aches or pains, it’s always important to reach out to your transplant team to make sure that – it could be any of the above..
And so you’re doing the appropriate workup with lab work, imaging, things that would be appropriate or seeing certain specialists. Maybe orthopedist if needed because it could be I’d say less likely leukemic relapse, but still want to be sure. But it could be definitely complications from GVHD or there’s some joint issues that can evolve post-transplant, especially for people who are on long-term immunosuppressant medications. Or it could be the normal effects of aging. So, it’s always good to have that reassurance.
Katherine Banwell:
Let’s talk a little bit about mental health resources. Managing the worry associated with a diagnosis or concerns about relapse, or even various side effects can lead to emotional symptoms like anxiety and fear.
Why is it important for people with AML to share how they’re feeling with their healthcare team?
Dr. Alice Mims:
So, I think it’s very important because, one, all of those feelings are normal feelings. I think they’re sometimes that from going through such a rapid diagnosis and then having to start treatment pretty quickly and going through all the ups and downs with these types of diagnosis can really lead to for some patients PTSD-type symptoms. And then there are also things that can evolve over time where their anxiety or even survivorship guilt as you go if you move forward and are doing well where you may have some friends or people you met along the way who may not have had as good outcomes. And so, there are resources available based off of where you are.
But for survivorship, oncology specific counseling to deal with some of these feelings that are understandable and normal for what patients have been through.
Katherine Banwell:
Can a social worker help? And are there other people on the healthcare team who can support a patient’s emotional needs?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Oh, absolutely. So, I think it’s really place-dependent on where you are but yes, absolutely. Social workers are a great resource for patients. There may be other collaborative teams based off of where you’re receiving your treatment that may be available that are maybe patient support groups where you can go and be with other patients or Facebook, social media support groups. And I think all those can be very helpful. And I know at least at our center, we also have patient mentors who have been through and gotten through to the other side of transplant or whatnot who are great resources because they’ve lived and experienced it.
And I think that’s just as a physician, I can talk about things that I don’t have that personal experience having lived through it. And I think that’s very important —
Katherine Banwell:
Yeah. It’s a…
Dr. Alice Mims:
…to be able to have somebody to talk to. Yeah.
Katherine Banwell:
Yeah. What about the financial aspect of treatments? There are many people who would find it difficult to find and maybe they don’t have insurance, or their insurance doesn’t cover a lot. How do you help patients who are dealing with financial restrictions?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, I think that we’re fortunate here because we have a lot of support staff to help patients with our financial counseling team. We also have people within the medication assistance programs who can help find foundation grants to help with medication support, travel support.
I think for patients who may not have those things available at their individual center, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is a great place to reach out for.
And there are other foundations as well who at least may have navigators to help patients figure out other resources or funding available.
Katherine Banwell:
Yeah. Okay. That’s really good information, Dr. Mims. Thank you. And please continue to send in your questions to question@powerfulpatients.org and we’ll work to get them answered on future programs. Well, Dr. Mims as we close out our program, I wanted to get your thoughts on where we stand with progress in AML care. Are there advances in research treatment that you’re hopeful about?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Yes. I would say from even when I finished fellowship 10 years ago, not to state my age, but we had essentially about three treatments at that time.
Now in the past five years there have been I think maybe 11 different new drugs that have been approved for a acute myeloma leukemia. And so, I think we’re just on the precipice of really evolving to have individualized care. Hopefully have more curative options for patients. So, I’m really excited for the time we’re in right now where I even hope we’ll be in the next five years for patients.
Katherine Banwell:
That’s an encouraging message to leave the audience with, Dr. Mims. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Dr. Alice Mims:
Thank you so much for letting me be here with you today.
Katherine Banwell:
And thank you to all of our collaborators. To learn more about AML and to access tools to help you become a proactive patient, visit powerfulpatients.org. I’m Katherine Banwell. Thanks for joining us today.
Managing Life With AML | What You Should Know About Care and Treatment
Managing Life With AML | What You Should Know About Care and Treatment from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
What do you need to know when it comes to managing life with acute myeloid leukemia (AML)? In this webinar, Dr. Alice Mims, an AML specialist and researcher, discusses how treatment decisions are made and how test results may impact therapy. Dr. Mims will shares the latest advances in research and key advice for living well with AML.
Dr. Alice Mims is a hematologist specializing in acute and chronic myeloid conditions. Dr. Mims serves as the Acute Leukemia Clinical Research Director at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – James. Learn more about Dr. Mims.
Related Resources:
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Transcript:
Katherine Banwell:
Hello, and welcome. I’m Katherine Banwell, your host for today. Today’s program is a continuation of our Thrive series. And we’re going to discuss navigating life with AML, and how you can engage in your care. Before we get into the discussion, please remember that this program is not a substitute for seeking medical advice. Please refer to your healthcare team about what might be best for you. Well, joining us today is Dr. Alice Mims.
Dr. Mims, welcome. Would you please introduce yourself?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Yeah, sure. Thank you, Katherine. I’m Alice Mims. I’m a physician and associate professor at Ohio State University. And also, the section head for the myeloid and acute leukemia program within our division of hematology.
Katherine Banwell:
Thank you so much for taking the time to join us today, Dr. Mims. We start all of our webinars in our thrive series with the same question; in your experience, what does it mean to thrive with AML?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure, I think that’s a great question. So, really for me, I think thriving with AML is very patient- or person-dependent. It really depends on making sure that your treatment goals align with your care. And so that means really being an active participant in your diagnosis, understanding the disease process, and making sure that your care team really understands what your overall goals are for your treatment.
Katherine Banwell:
Thank you for that because it helps us to understand as we move through the program today. One part of thriving with AML is finding a treatment approach that manages your disease and fits with your lifestyle. Before we talk about therapy, can you tell us how treatment goals are established for an individual patient?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, for individual patients I think it’s very important that there is an initial discussion that doesn’t feel too shortened that you can have time with your care team to really go into depth about the diagnosis, about the specifics of your particular subtype of acute myeloid leukemia, understanding the treatment options, and then being given time allowed to reflect on all of that information. So, then you can come back and have your questions better answered that may come from that initial discussion.
And then help you with your team make a decision based on that information that works best for you.
Katherine Banwell:
Outside of patient preference, what other factors do you take into account when working with a patient to decide on a treatment plan?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, there are multiple different factors that we try to take into account. Again, yeah most importantly what patients’ goals are like you mentioned, but those include overall health, including different comorbidities, so what other healthcare diagnoses, medications are you taking, what are the patient’s age, thinking about that for long-term goals, overall support from loved ones, family to — just because care can be really involved. And then in particular, thinking about specific features of that individual patient’s AML, including molecular, genetic features of the leukemia.
Katherine Banwell:
Well, let’s talk more in depth about the test results you just mentioned.
What is the test for genetic markers? And how is it conducted?
Dr. Alice Mims:
So, there are a few different tests that we use under that scope of genetic markers. So, those include looking at chromosomal abnormalities of the DNA. So, with cytogenetics, and then also more specific prose where we call FISH testing. And then also we look for specific gene mutations through next generation sequencing, or PCR testing. And so, we use all of those results together to give us the most information we can about that individual’s leukemia.
Katherine Banwell:
How has molecular testing revolutionized AML care?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Oh gracious. It’s really done such – so much for leukemia. And just things are so different even where they were five years ago because of having molecular mutations, that information available.
So, it helps with discussing prognosis. So, we know that different molecular features can tell us about curative intent and what are the treatment steps we would need to take to give the best chance long-term. And then also now, we’ve evolved to where we have directed therapies that can target mutations or the proteins that arise from those mutations with therapeutic options.
Katherine Banwell:
Is this testing standard following an AML diagnosis?
Dr. Alice Mims:
It is standard following an AML diagnosis. That’s recommended within all of the guidelines with patients and really should be done for all patients at initial diagnosis.
Katherine Banwell:
Can genetic markers or mutations change over time? For example, if a patient relapses, should molecular testing be done again?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Yes, absolutely. Mutations can evolve. It’s something we call clonal evolution of the leukemia.
And so you can have mutations that could be present at diagnosis that may no longer be present. Or the opposite can occur where you have new mutations that can appear. And that can lead to different options for treatment. So, it’s very important to retest at time of relapse.
Katherine Banwell:
What advice do you have for patients who want to ensure that they’ve actually undergone molecular testing? What questions should they be asking their healthcare team?
Dr. Alice Mims:
I think it’s definitely important to bring this up with the healthcare team. And it should be something at diagnosis and relapse to ask, what are the cytogenetics, what do they look like now, what do the gene mutations, and really as mentioned before, it’s so crucial in talking about prognosis, talking about treatment options that if it doesn’t come up, it’s really something that you should take a pause and try to go back to readdress with your team.
Katherine Banwell:
I’d like to move on to treatment now, Dr. Mims. And, of course, treatment takes place in phases for AML. The first is induction therapy. Can you start by defining induction therapy for our audience?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, induction therapy is really terminology that we use to talk about initial therapy for someone with a new diagnosis. So, we can have intensive induction therapies, and non-intensive induction therapies. But the goal for either of those types of treatment is to get the leukemia into remission.
So, to talk about that in a little bit more detail, for intensive induction regimens, those typically involve cytotoxic chemotherapy. So, you may hear terminology like, “7 + 3 induction,” or “high-dose cytarabine regimens,” but those are typically more intensive regimens that we use that can have increased side effects but may be very important based off the type of acute leukemia.
And then for non-intensive based regimens, one of the standards has really evolved to be venetoclax (Venclexta) and azacitidine (Vidaza) as a non-intensive regimen that can work very well for a majority of patients. And there are some off shoots of that as well.
Katherine Banwell:
Okay. And when does stem cell transplant come into play?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, stem cell transplant is something that we all think about at the beginning for anyone with a new diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia where as we’re working to get back genomic information about the individual’s acute leukemia, we may go ahead and start looking for different donors, doing typing, just in case that’s something that we need as far as someone’s therapy.
But typically we reserve stem cell transplant for patients who have either intermediate or high-risk features of their AML. Or who may have even favorable respite are not responding as well as we would like when looking at the depth of remission. And so, we always want to be prepared in case that’s something we need to move forward with as part of their care, if the goal of their treatment is for curative intent.
Katherine Banwell:
Let’s talk about what happens after the initial phase of treatment. What’s the purpose of consolidation therapy?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, there are a few different purposes we can use consolidation therapy for. So, for patients – consolidation therapy is used for patients who have achieved remission. And then it’s either to try to hopefully get them cure of their AML. The patients have more favorable risk features of their AML and cure is an option through just chemotherapy alone.
Or it can be used to try to keep people in remission while we’re working to get towards stem cell transplant as that can sometimes take a few months to get a donor ready, have things ready to move forward with transplant.
Katherine Banwell:
And what are the options for consolidation therapy?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, options for consolidated chemotherapy are typically based off of what you had initially for induction chemotherapy. So, if it’s more intensive-based regimens, it typically is consolidation with intensive consolidation, cytarabine based regimens.
For lower intensity regimens, typically consolidation is more continuing therapy on what you started but may have adjustments of the treatment based off of trying to decrease the toxicity now that the patients are in remission.
Katherine Banwell:
And how are patients monitored in consolidation therapy?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, it definitely is based off of the individual’s type of consolidation chemotherapy or treatment. But most patients, if we feel like the treatment is going to lower blood counts, they have bloodwork twice a week, and we’re watching for things, for side effects for treatment, looking out for risk of infection, giving transfusion support, and then if something happens that we feel like we can’t support patients in an outpatient setting, then we’ll get them back into the hospital if they need to for care.
Katherine Banwell:
What side effects are you looking for?
Dr. Alice Mims:
So, most of the side effects with any of the treatments that we give are what we call myelosuppressives. So, it lowers the different types of blood counts.
So, white blood cell count which increases risk of infection, red blood cells, so, side effects or symptoms from anemia. And then risk of bleeding from low platelet counts.
Katherine Banwell:
Okay. Maintenance therapy has become more common in other blood cancers particularly in multiple myeloma. Is there a role for maintenance therapy in AML?
Dr. Alice Mims:
There actually is now, which is something that’s newer that has evolved for acute myeloma leukemia. So, in the context of intensive therapy, we now have oral azacitidine (Onureg), which is a little bit different than some of the IV formulations that we give.
But for patients who receive intensive induction therapy, get into remission and may receive consolidation but are not able to go onto transplant if they have that immediate or higher risk features, there’s FDA approval for oral azacytidine, which has been shown to improve overall survival and keep people in those remissions for longer.
More recently, specifically for patients who have a particular type of mutation called FLT3, if they also receive intensive induction therapy with a FLT3 inhibitor added onto that, then their quizartinib was just recently approved as a maintenance therapy for patients with that particular type of AML.
Katherine Banwell:
Are there emerging AML therapies that patients should know about other than what you just mentioned?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, I think there are a lot of exciting treatments that are up and coming based off of many small molecule inhibitors that are being studied.
One in particular I would mention that everyone’s very excited about is a class of agents called menin inhibitors.
And so that’s an oral agent that has been shown to have responses for patients with relapse or refractory AML who have NMP-1 mutations or have something called KNT2A rearrangements. And seeing responses with just a single agent in the relapse refractory setting, it’s been really exciting. And so, I think we’re hopeful that that may become FDA-approved in the near future. And it’s also now being explored in combination with intensive chemotherapies as well as less intensive induction regimens. And so, maybe we can do a better job without brunt treatment by adding these therapies on.
Katherine Banwell:
That’s exciting news. When it comes to living and thriving with AML, Dr. Mims, managing disease symptoms and treatment side effects is a big part of that.
Would you talk about how symptoms and side effects can impact life with AML?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, I think from my perspective, what we are always trying to do when we’re moving forward with a treatment plan is of course, get patients into remission, but the purpose of getting into remission is not just to achieve that, but for patients to have quality of life. And so, there needs to be continued dialogue between the patient and the treatment team about how you’re feeling during treatment. Because they’re definitely based off of therapy, different side effects, things that could be not necessarily due to active leukemia anymore. And so there may need to be dose adjustments and other things that we do to the regimens in order to make you feel as good as possible while continuing on treatment.
Katherine Banwell:
Why is it so important for patients to speak up about any issues they may be having?
Dr. Alice Mims:
I think it’s important because you’re your own best advocate. Being the patient, being the person who’s living with having this diagnosis and going through the treatment, myself, or other colleagues as physicians, we can have a sense of what may be going on based off of numbers. But we’re not truly going to know how you’re feeling unless you speak up and let us know. And there may be things we could do with supportive medications, dosing adjustments as mentioned, that could help in making you hopefully feel better and less side effects and toxicities from treatment.
Katherine Banwell:
What are some common symptoms and side effects that you hear about?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Okay. Sure. So, different side effects that I would say that people can have, people can feel fatigued just from treatment in general. Some of our therapies can cause neuropathy, skin rashes, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea. And so, all of those are important along as mentioned with symptoms you may have from decreased blood counts that we do have interventions that we could implement to help the – make the therapy more tolerable.
Katherine Banwell:
So, for the side effects like fatigue for example, what do you do about that?
Dr. Alice Mims:
So, I think it depends on the level of fatigue. Of course, we don’t have – I wish we had a pill that could just make fatigue improve. But if it’s really that the treatment is deriving it, and it’s impeding your quality of life there are dose reductions or things we can do that may help with the level of fatigue you’re experiencing.
Katherine Banwell:
And what about some of the other side effects. You mentioned diarrhea.
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure.
Katherine Banwell:
How is that handled?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Yeah. So, for issues from GI complications such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, we have really lots of choices for anti-nausea medicines and different combinations we can use or newer antiemetics that can help with that. And from a diarrhea perspective it depends on the treatment. But of course, we want to make sure first and foremost there’s no infection. And if not, then there are good antidiarrheals we could add on to the regiment to help with that as well.
Katherine Banwell:
Okay. That’s great advice. Thank you. I want to make sure that we get to some of the audience questions. These were sent to us in advance of the program today. Let’s start with this one; Janet wants to know what factors enable a patient to achieve and continue in remission if they are not able to achieve stem cell transplant due to age restrictions.
Dr. Alice Mims:
So, I think first and foremost, I think it’s very important that there — that patients are aware that there shouldn’t be just strict, stringent cutoffs of age as a requirement for stem cell transplant. And really, there’s a lot of research going on that we should take into account. Physiological age, and there’s ways to measure that just to be sure that stem cell transplant really is not an option. And for patients who stem cell transplant is not an option, I think as we talked about earlier, so there can still be really great treatments that can get patients into remission and ongoing therapies with dosing adjustments again to decrease toxicity and improve quality of life and thinking about things like maintenance therapy as appropriate.
Katherine Banwell:
What are the age restrictions, and why are they there?
Dr. Alice Mims:
So, sometimes you will hear age 75.
Really, no one above age 75 should move forward with transplant. And that’s based off of past data where they’ve explored transplant and seen increased toxicity. And from transplant in itself, increased side effects, increased risk of early mortality. And so, I do think it’s important to take the patient as a whole into consideration because again, you could have someone who’s 77 who may be running marathons, and in great shape, and not a lot of other healthcare issues, who may still do really well with treatment. And so, I think that’s – really needs to be taken in account, really the overall picture of health for the patient before making…
Katherine Banwell:
So, the…
Dr. Alice Mims:
…just a firm cutoff.
Katherine Banwell:
Right. Okay. So, it’s not cut and dry.
Dr. Alice Mims:
Exactly.
Katherine Banwell:
If you’re 75 or older, then you definitely can’t have stem cell transplant.
Dr. Alice Mims:
That’s correct.
Katherine Banwell:
Then you’re looking at everyone individually.
Dr. Alice Mims:
Yeah. So, it really should be looked at.
And I still have some patients who will come to me and say, “Oh, I was told I’m 68 years old, I’m not a candidate.” And that always makes me take a step back. And then we kind of have to have that discussion again. And they may still not be a good candidate based off of other comorbidities or healthcare issues, but it shouldn’t just be a number rules you out for having that as an option.
Katherine Banwell:
Good to know. We received this question from Carl, “What does treatment look like following transplant? And what are doctors looking for when monitoring through blood tests?”
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, after transplant, the first three months is pretty intensive of being seen very frequently at your transplant center twice to once a week. You’re also on immunosuppressive medications to try to help prevent issues like graft vs host disease, which can be a complication from transplant.
And then over time if you’re doing well, we try to start tapering off those immunosuppressive regimens to see if you can tolerate that. And what I say to most of my patients for – who are undergoing transplant, it can take some time to really feel back to being yourself. It can take six months, it can take a year or longer. And sometimes your normal is a new normal based off of how you do and the side effects of the transplant in itself. So, you may not go back to if you’re here before transplant and before your diagnosis, it may be that this is your new normal. Just so people can be prepared and know what they’re signing up for.
Katherine Banwell:
And with the blood testing, what are you looking for when you’re monitoring a patient?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. There are a few different things that we’re looking for when monitoring patients. So, one, making sure that the stem cells or the graft from the donor are recovering.
You want to see that blood counts, levels of white blood cells, red blood cells, platelets are getting to normal levels. You’re also assessing and making sure you’re not seeing signs of relapse. You’re checking levels of donor cells versus the patient cells within the stem cell — sorry, within the stem cell compartments. And so, we’re taking all of those into account as well as checking organ function and making sure there’s no signs of potential graft versus host disease as well.
Katherine Banwell:
Katrina sent in this question; do you have any advice for dealing with a general oncologist who does not exactly follow my AML doctor’s recommendations? I see a local oncologist and an AML specialist guides my care.
Dr. Alice Mims:
I think that’s a tough question. And so, I think I’ll answer that if – maybe two different ways.
So, one, I think sometimes it’s hard when you’re the local community oncologist, and you’re there for the day-to-day care. And so there may need to be treatment adjustments and other things that you need to do in that moment or time to help make sure that toxicities are not too severe or are helping the patient as you’re seeing them day-to-day. And it may not be easy to involve the specialist right there in the moment. But I think if there are bigger issues as far as overall goals, overall communication, it should be that both are able to communicate well with each other. They should be able to communicate via email, via text message. That’s what I do with a lot of my community partners. And it’s always important that you as a patient feel confident in your care. And so, if that trust is not there that things are being followed, then it may be important to look and see if there’s another physician who you do feel comfortable with proceeding with your care with.
Katherine Banwell:
And what do you tell patients when they’re not feeling comfortable with their care team or their oncologist or their general oncologist? What do you say to them to give them some confidence to find somebody else who they feel more comfortable with?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, I’ll just say from my perspective. So, if I’m seeing a patient and they may have questions, they may not feel comfortable, they may need more time. And I always think it’s important if you want a second opinion, whether it’s at a specialist level, whether it’s in a community oncology private setting, that should not be offensive to the physician.
If that makes the patient feel more comfortable in what they’re doing with their care, that’s how they should move forward. And it should be what they feel like is best. If a physician takes that personally or is offended by it, I think that’s more of their problem as opposed to anything that you’re doing wrong.
Katherine Banwell:
Okay. Thank you for that. Ryan wants to know; I’m a year and a half post-transplant, how can you tell if the aches and pains in your joints are normal aging, host vs graft disease, the AML returning, or even something else?
Dr. Alice Mims:
So, I think that’s also a difficult question to answer because it really is patient dependent. And so, I think if you’re having new joint aches or pains, it’s always important to reach out to your transplant team to make sure that – it could be any of the above..
And so you’re doing the appropriate workup with lab work, imaging, things that would be appropriate or seeing certain specialists. Maybe orthopedist if needed because it could be I’d say less likely leukemic relapse, but still want to be sure. But it could be definitely complications from GVHD or there’s some joint issues that can evolve post-transplant, especially for people who are on long-term immunosuppressant medications. Or it could be the normal effects of aging. So, it’s always good to have that reassurance.
Katherine Banwell:
Let’s talk a little bit about mental health resources. Managing the worry associated with a diagnosis or concerns about relapse, or even various side effects can lead to emotional symptoms like anxiety and fear.
Why is it important for people with AML to share how they’re feeling with their healthcare team?
Dr. Alice Mims:
So, I think it’s very important because, one, all of those feelings are normal feelings. I think they’re sometimes that from going through such a rapid diagnosis and then having to start treatment pretty quickly and going through all the ups and downs with these types of diagnosis can really lead to for some patients PTSD-type symptoms. And then there are also things that can evolve over time where their anxiety or even survivorship guilt as you go if you move forward and are doing well where you may have some friends or people you met along the way who may not have had as good outcomes. And so, there are resources available based off of where you are.
But for survivorship, oncology specific counseling to deal with some of these feelings that are understandable and normal for what patients have been through.
Katherine Banwell:
Can a social worker help? And are there other people on the healthcare team who can support a patient’s emotional needs?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Oh, absolutely. So, I think it’s really place-dependent on where you are but yes, absolutely. Social workers are a great resource for patients. There may be other collaborative teams based off of where you’re receiving your treatment that may be available that are maybe patient support groups where you can go and be with other patients or Facebook, social media support groups. And I think all those can be very helpful. And I know at least at our center, we also have patient mentors who have been through and gotten through to the other side of transplant or whatnot who are great resources because they’ve lived and experienced it.
And I think that’s just as a physician, I can talk about things that I don’t have that personal experience having lived through it. And I think that’s very important —
Katherine Banwell:
Yeah. It’s a…
Dr. Alice Mims:
…to be able to have somebody to talk to. Yeah.
Katherine Banwell:
Yeah. What about the financial aspect of treatments? There are many people who would find it difficult to find and maybe they don’t have insurance, or their insurance doesn’t cover a lot. How do you help patients who are dealing with financial restrictions?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, I think that we’re fortunate here because we have a lot of support staff to help patients with our financial counseling team. We also have people within the medication assistance programs who can help find foundation grants to help with medication support, travel support.
I think for patients who may not have those things available at their individual center, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is a great place to reach out for.
And there are other foundations as well who at least may have navigators to help patients figure out other resources or funding available.
Katherine Banwell:
Yeah. Okay. That’s really good information, Dr. Mims. Thank you. And please continue to send in your questions to question@powerfulpatients.org and we’ll work to get them answered on future programs. Well, Dr. Mims as we close out our program, I wanted to get your thoughts on where we stand with progress in AML care. Are there advances in research treatment that you’re hopeful about?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Yes. I would say from even when I finished fellowship 10 years ago, not to state my age, but we had essentially about three treatments at that time.
Now in the past five years there have been I think maybe 11 different new drugs that have been approved for a acute myeloma leukemia. And so, I think we’re just on the precipice of really evolving to have individualized care. Hopefully have more curative options for patients. So, I’m really excited for the time we’re in right now where I even hope we’ll be in the next five years for patients.
Katherine Banwell:
That’s an encouraging message to leave the audience with, Dr. Mims. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Dr. Alice Mims:
Thank you so much for letting me be here with you today.
Katherine Banwell:
And thank you to all of our collaborators. To learn more about AML and to access tools to help you become a proactive patient, visit powerfulpatients.org. I’m Katherine Banwell. Thanks for joining us today.
Phases of AML Therapy | Understanding Treatment Options
Phases of AML Therapy | Understanding Treatment Options from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
What are the types and phases of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) treatment? Dr. Alice Mims, an AML specialist, defines induction, consolidation, and maintenance therapy for patients. Dr. Mims also explains the role of stem cell transplant and discusses promising new AML therapies.
Dr. Alice Mims is a hematologist specializing in acute and chronic myeloid conditions. Dr. Mims serves as the Acute Leukemia Clinical Research Director at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – James. Learn more about Dr. Mims.
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New and Emerging AML Therapies Being Studied in Clinical Trials |
Transcript:
Katherine Banwell:
I’d like to move on to treatment now, Dr. Mims. And, of course, treatment takes place in phases for AML. The first is induction therapy. Can you start by defining induction therapy for our audience?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, induction therapy is really terminology that we use to talk about initial therapy for someone with a new diagnosis. So, we can have intensive induction therapies and non-intensive induction therapies. But the goal for either of those types of treatment is to get the leukemia into remission.
Katherine Banwell:
And what are the available treatment options for induction therapy?
Dr. Alice Mims:
So, to talk about that in a little bit more detail, for intensive induction regimens, those typically involve cytotoxic chemotherapy. So, you may hear terminology like, “7 + 3 induction,” or “high-dose cytarabine regimens,” but those are typically more intensive regimens that we use that can have increased side effects but may be very important based off the type of acute leukemia.
And then for non-intensive based regimens, one of the standards has really evolved to be venetoclax (Venclexta) and azacitidine (Vidaza) as a non-intensive regimen that can work very well for a majority of patients. And there are some off shoots of that as well.
Katherine Banwell:
Okay. And when does stem cell transplant come into play?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, stem cell transplant is something that we all think about at the beginning for anyone with a new diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia where as we’re working to get back genomic information about the individual’s acute leukemia, we may go ahead and start looking for different donors, doing typing, just in case that’s something that we need as far as someone’s therapy.
But typically we reserve stem cell transplant for patients who have either intermediate or high-risk features of their AML. Or who may have even favorable respite are not responding as well as we would like when looking at the depth of remission. And so, we always want to be prepared in case that’s something we need to move forward with as part of their care, if the goal of their treatment is for curative intent.
Katherine Banwell:
Let’s talk about what happens after the initial phase of treatment. What’s the purpose of consolidation therapy?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, there are a few different purposes we can use consolidation therapy for. So, for patients – consolidation therapy is used for patients who have achieved remission. And then it’s either to try to hopefully get them cure of their AML. The patients have more favorable risk features of their AML and cure is an option through just chemotherapy alone.
Or it can be used to try to keep people in remission while we’re working to get towards stem cell transplant as that can sometimes take a few months to get a donor ready, have things ready to move forward with transplant.
Katherine Banwell:
And what are the options for consolidation therapy?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, options for consolidated chemotherapy are typically based off of what you had initially for induction chemotherapy. So, if it’s more intensive-based regimens, it typically is consolidation with intensive consolidation, cytarabine-based (Cytosar-U) regimens.
For lower intensity regimens, typically consolidation is more continuing therapy on what you started but may have adjustments of the treatment based off of trying to decrease the toxicity now that the patients are in remission.
Katherine Banwell:
And how are patients monitored in consolidation therapy?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, it definitely is based off of the individual’s type of consolidation chemotherapy or treatment. But most patients, if we feel like the treatment is going to lower blood counts, they have bloodwork twice a week, and we’re watching for things, for side effects for treatment, looking out for risk of infection, giving transfusion support, and then if something happens that we feel like we can’t support patients in an outpatient setting, then we’ll get them back into the hospital if they need to for care.
Katherine Banwell:
What side effects are you looking for?
Dr. Alice Mims:
So, most of the side effects with any of the treatments that we give are what we call myelosuppressives. So, it lowers the different types of blood counts.
So, white blood cell count which increases risk of infection, red blood cells, so, side effects or symptoms from anemia. And then risk of bleeding from low platelet counts.
Katherine Banwell:
Okay. Maintenance therapy has become more common in other blood cancers particularly in multiple myeloma. Is there a role for maintenance therapy in AML?
Dr. Alice Mims:
There actually is now, which is something that’s newer that has evolved for acute myeloma leukemia. So, in the context of intensive therapy, we now have oral azacitidine (Onureg), which is a little bit different than some of the IV formulations that we give.
But for patients who receive intensive induction therapy, get into remission and may receive consolidation but are not able to go onto transplant if they have that immediate or higher risk features, there’s FDA approval for oral azacytidine, which has been shown to improve overall survival and keep people in those remissions for longer.
More recently, specifically for patients who have a particular type of mutation called FLT3, if they also receive intensive induction therapy with a FLT3 inhibitor added onto that, then their quizartinib (Vanflyta) was just recently approved as a maintenance therapy for patients with that particular type of AML.
Katherine Banwell:
Are there emerging AML therapies that patients should know about other than what you just mentioned?
Dr. Alice Mims:
Sure. So, I think there are a lot of exciting treatments that are up and coming based off of many small molecule inhibitors that are being studied.
One in particular I would mention that everyone’s very excited about is a class of agents called menin inhibitors.
And so that’s an oral agent that has been shown to have responses for patients with relapsed or refractory AML who have NMP-1 mutations or have something called KNT2A rearrangements. And seeing responses with just a single agent in the relapsed/refractory setting, it’s been really exciting. And so, I think we’re hopeful that that may become FDA-approved in the near future. And it’s also now being explored in combination with intensive chemotherapies as well as less intensive induction regimens. And so, maybe we can do a better job with upfront treatment by adding these therapies on.
AML Treatment Decisions | Understanding Factors That Impact Your Options
AML Treatment Decisions | Understanding Factors That Impact Your Options from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
An acute myeloid leukemia (AML) diagnosis can be different for each individual patient, so how is a treatment approach determined? AML specialist Dr. Jacqueline Garcia provides an overview of factors taken into consideration when choosing therapy, including age, overall health, and the patient’s preference.
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia is an oncologist and AML researcher at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Learn more about Dr. Garcia.
Related Resources:
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Transcript:
Katherine Banwell:
With all the treatment options available, how do you decide who gets what? Tell us what is considered when choosing treatment for a patient.
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
When I – this is a complicated question, because it’s not like you follow any particular algorithm. But when I meet a patient, I make a decision on what’s important to the patient and what’s their goal. If I know – I need to understand their overall health to get a sense of are there ongoing competing risk factors that are active and more likely to impede with response, ability to deliver chemo, ability to get to transplant, something that tells me that’s not a possibility, or is their age too advanced – meaning greater than 75 – where we know that some of the treatments are not safe to deliver in that setting?
So, I take a look at a patient’s overall health and age to make a decision. I take a look at bone marrow biopsy and lab findings to understand the flavor of their leukemia, from chromosomes to mutations. And because I am familiar with the data to give me a sense of what’s safe, what’s tolerable, and importantly what types of diseases, or subtypes of AML, would respond to one therapy over another, that’s how I formulate a recommendation.
And based on all of that, all together, I’ll talk to them about treating the AML in steps. The first step is getting them into a remission, which can be done regardless of therapy type. That means to get their bone marrow under control, blood counts to recover. The second step, which is a more involved conversation that I often give a little bit of a hint of, but I go into greater detail over time, because we will see each other quite a lot, whether in the hospital or in clinic, is how to keep them in remission.
And that’s where details about things like transplant come into play. I do my best to not overwhelm them, because when a patient hears the word transplant – and that’s often what they hear from family and friends because that’s what you can Google – they don’t know that there are many things, or many weeks of therapy, that have to happen in advance of transplant even being considered or happening. And transplant can’t even happen until someone’s in remission.
But that is always on the forefront of a leukemia doctor’s mind, “Can I bring this patient to a transplantation? How successful will I be and what else do I need to give them to get them there sooner, safer, with a deeper response?” So, that way transplant could be successful. Transplant, by the way, is when we give a patient someone else’s stem cells that match their HLA typing, or their white blood cell signature.
And it helps us to use someone else’s immune system to completely irradicate any microscopic leftover leukemia in a patient. But that is only successful when patients have good disease control or remissions. And that is only also successful if we have a donor for the patient, both of which require at least several weeks to a couple of months of therapy. But that process is always initiated and ongoing in the background. And so, we often do this in piecemeal, because getting a diagnosis is already overwhelming. Learning about treatment is overwhelming.
Learning about the frequency of labs, transfusions, being hospitalized, and then details about what a transplant would entail can be also overwhelming. But a lot of family and friends like to ask, because they feel like that is one way they might be able to help a patient. So, I know that they often eagerly ask the patient, “Well, what about this? How can I help?”
Katherine Banwell:
Right. I can imagine that patient preference is also considered. But what kind of questions should patients ask about their treatment regimen?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
I always tell patients that I care very much about things like travel, hotels, all that jazz. But I always tell them let’s first talk about their health, what treatment I would recommend based on the available options and what their disease would mostly respond to, because I want it to be successful. And I always tell them let’s reserve questions on how it’s going to be done for last. I call that the logistics. I will never bring up or recommend something that could never be possible. But that being said, I try not to let the commute determine the decision.
Whether or not there needs to be a hospitalization versus a hotel stay. I always consider then the background, but that financial decision should not drive the best treatment choice for a patient. Very fortunately, we’re in a country where patients have the ability – often, not always – to seek second opinions or to travel to academic centers.
And because AML is an emergent or life-threatening disease, many insurance providers allow patients to come up to a big center to be treated, which I think is more than appropriate. So, we get into details of logistics last, because that’s the one thing that we can often overcome by providing additional resources and support. In terms of patient preference, if that’s what you mean with that, I would say I leave logistics to last, but we always consider and we do our best to accommodate.
And that might be where we inform them we will look into getting a local partner to help us with additional therapies after the first month or upon discharge. So, it totally depends on the scenario for a patient, whether or not they have a local provider and a local hospital that could accommodate acute leukemia. I always tell patients ideally you don’t want to go to a place that only sees this once per year. You want to go to a place where everyone has seen it multiple times, including the nurses on the floors.
So, that way, when there’s a complication, everyone knows what to do. We don’t want any “surprises” when it’s really just run-of-the-mill standard stuff for us every day. In terms of what patients desire, we always keep that in the conversation of their level of support. Can they swallow pills? Are they able to cope with being in and out of the hospital? All that stuff gets considered, but I think if they hear about the plan, about what’s required, when my expectation would be for a response, when the frequency of trips to a big city would decrease, how I could get a local partner to help with some of the lab or transfusion burden.
Many of those preferences that they thought they had diminished, because they recognize that we found a way to make it work.
Katherine Banwell:
Dr. Garcia, you mentioned earlier the fact that some therapies can cause a lot of side effects, like nausea. And certainly, speaking up and telling your healthcare team how you’re feeling and what some of the symptoms and side effects are, that’s really essential. What is the impetus for someone to consider changing treatment if something is just absolutely not agreeing with them?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
So, there are many reasons to change a treatment. One is a patient doesn’t tolerate it. It depends on what the issue is. Is it something that’s serious, like a liver or enzyme abnormality that is very abnormal, or a new cardiac problem where it would warrant a change or a dose reduction? That makes sense. There is definitely – often, there’s a lot of guidance in the package inserts or within a clinical trial and how to manage that. But if patient has some intolerabilities that could be overcome with standard supportive care methods, I would make sure we’ve done that.
So, I would make sure you give you medical team the chance to fix any nausea. We have so many great antinausea drugs. I would want to make sure – or if constipation or diarrhea. It’s often a GI issue that patients get really bothered by.
I would try to delineate whether or not the side effect was really from the chemo or is from the leukemia that is not yet under control. Or is it another medical condition or a drug-drug interaction that was missed. So, I would do my best to make sure there wasn’t something that was fixable or something else that should be addressed. We otherwise would recommend changing therapy for an extreme intolerability if there was another equivalent better option. And if someone’s disease does not respond to treatment, then we would consider another therapy, too.
Understanding AML Treatment Categories
Understanding AML Treatment Categories from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
What are the available classes of therapy for acute myeloid leukemia (AML)? Dr. Jacqueline Garcia reviews AML treatment options, ranging from chemotherapy and stem cell transplant to supportive care.
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia is an oncologist and AML researcher at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Learn more about Dr. Garcia.
Related Resources:
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New and Emerging AML Therapies Being Studied in Clinical Trials |
Transcript:
Katherine Banwell:
In your experience, what does it mean to thrive with AML?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
I think that’s a really great question, and I’m glad you’re asking me now as opposed to a decade ago. In the last several years, we’ve had a tremendous number of drugs that got FDA-approved and a lot of exciting clinical trials that have not only shown efficacy and safety but really some long-term responses. So, we can now focus on not just finding what drug can work, which used to be our problem 10 years ago, since we had very limited therapeutic tools, meaning treatments. We now have several treatments available.
So, when I think of what it means to thrive, it’s identifying the right treatment for each individual patient with acute myeloid leukemia, because what might be recommended for one patient may not be the right for another. And there are many different patient- and disease-related factors that go into that decision-making.
Katherine Banwell:
Can you walk us through the classes of treatment that are considered when choosing an AML treatment approach?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
Yeah. In terms of the different classes of treatments, I would say we think of probably three broad categories. One would be – sorry, four broad categories. One would be intensive chemotherapy. And that involves generally hospitalization. Another would be less intensive therapy. That could involve a mixture of inpatient or outpatient therapy. That could also include targeted therapy. The third would be clinical trials, which can include any of the former options I recommended, but they would be in an experimental study. And the fourth would be focusing solely on supportive care or hospice for patients that are too sick to receive therapy.
Other aspects that are specific, such as pills, versus IV, versus role of transplant, I don’t see it as being separate. You don’t go right to transplant when you have a diagnosis of AML. You have to be in remission. So, transplant, for instance, would come after an intensive therapy or after the less intensive chemotherapy. So, I see that as being the second step once I choose the right treatment option for the patient.
Katherine Banwell:
And when you’re talking about transplant, you’re talking about stem cell transplant, right?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
Yes. Stem cell transplant, bone marrow transplant – they mean the same thing. We recruit stem cells from donors that are related or unrelated, and we mobilize them from bone marrow to blood. And so, we can collect stem cells either from blood or bone marrow at this point. So, that’s exactly right.
Katherine Banwell:
And what about targeted therapy?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
We have targeted therapy available that’s IV or pill form. And so, any one of these options can be considered. But everything is very patient-specific, and I am very happy to tell you some of the categories and nuances of things that I look at, because I don’t usually just offer patients a menu.
I tell them what’s appropriate based on their patient characteristics, meaning what their liver function is, their heart function, their history, medical history, what their labs show. And then, I look at their disease history. We are now in an era where we have options. So, I look to see are there mutations that are targetable. Are there not? Are there markers on the surface of their leukemia cells that suggest that there’s a target for an immunotherapy?
So, we don’t offer classes per se without it being specific. So, I always look to see what are the patient disease-specific characteristics, and then I start the conversation about what the potential options could be and then what I think the best option would be for that particular case.
PODCAST: Thriving With AML | Tips and Support for Navigating Treatment
How can you navigate care and thrive with acute myeloid leukemia (AML)? In this webinar, Dr. Jacqueline Garcia, an AML specialist and researcher, discusses the treatment and management of AML. Dr. Garcia will review factors that impact therapy choices and shares advice and resources for people living with AML.
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia is an oncologist and AML researcher at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Learn more about Dr. Garcia.
Transcript:
Katherine Banwell:
Hello, and welcome. I’m Katherine Banwell, your host for this webinar. Today’s program is about how to live and thrive with AML. We’re going to discuss how to live well with AML and why you should play an active role in your care. Before we get into the discussion, please remember that this program is not a substitute for seeking medical advice. Please refer to your healthcare team about what might be best for you.
Well, let’s meet our guest today. Joining me is Dr. Jacqueline Garcia. Dr. Garcia, welcome. Would you please introduce yourself?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
Yes. Hi. My name is Jacqueline Garcia. I’m an oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. I’m a clinical translational investigator. And what this means is I take care of patients with acute and chronic leukemias. I focus mainly on patients with acute myeloid leukemia. The investigator part means, in addition to seeing patients, I spend a lot of time writing, developing, and executing clinical trials in the AML space. We know that there have been so many wonderful therapies that we helped to move froward and bring to the field and so there is more work to be done. So, having active investigations is a key part of this role.
Katherine Banwell:
Excellent. Well, thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to join us today. We really appreciate it. We start all of our webinars in our Thrive Series with the same question. In your experience, what does it mean to thrive with AML?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
I think that’s a really great question and I’m glad you’re asking me now as opposed to a decade ago. In the last several years, we’ve had a tremendous number of drugs that got FDA-approved and a lot of exciting clinical trials that have not only shown efficacy and safety but really some long-term responses. So, we can now focus on not just finding what drug can work, which used to be our problem 10 years ago, since we had very limited therapeutic tools, meaning treatments. We now have several treatments available.
So, when I think of what it means to thrive, it’s identifying the right treatment for each individual patient with acute myeloid leukemia, because what might be recommended for one patient may not be the right for another. And there are many different patient- and disease-related factors that go into that decision-making.
Katherine Banwell:
Thank you for that, Dr. Garcia. It helps guide us as we move into our conversation. Typically, there are a number of team members to care for a patient. Who is part of an AML healthcare team?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
Absolutely. We definitely cannot work on our own. Our team is very large, and it’s because these patients require a lot of support. At a bare minimum, a healthcare team will include at least one physician or an oncologist. The AML healthcare team might also include a second oncologist – that could be a bone marrow transplant doctor.
Other members that are very critical include having a mid-leveler available that’s a physician assistant or a nurse practitioner. Often, an oncologist who runs a busy practice, who takes care of patients that could be very sick, like AML, they work in partnership with often very talented physician assistants and nurse practitioners. I know I do.
In addition to that, I’m at an academic center so I’m super fortunate. I have really amazing and very smart hematology oncology fellows and residents that also follow to learn how to take care of patients. But we also, in the background, that patients don’t see – we have a pharmacist that helps us with making sure that drugs are prescribed correctly. They often call the patients with oral therapies to follow up. We have financial resource teams to help patients, to link them to LLS for support for bills that might come up, or transportation, or linking them up to other services that could help to defray or reduce costs.
So, the healthcare team is quite extensive. But in terms of those that are patient-facing, it’s primarily the MDM that are mid-leveler. Some teams operate also with a nurse or a nurse care coordinator. That’s pretty common, too. And that person helps to not only schedule but also to answer pages or phone calls from patients if the medical team is not doing that.
Katherine Banwell: What about a social worker or psychologist?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
Oh. Yes. Yes. So, absolutely. So, every patient can be offered, if needed, access to an inpatient or outpatient social worker. Often, if my patients are admitted we have them see a social worker because that’s fairly seamless. Otherwise, for outpatient, if we identify any particular needs or there’s an interest, we’ll link them up with a social worker. This is the same that goes for physical therapy, or nutritionists, or those other ancillary services that can be really critical when patients are getting started.
Katherine Banwell:
Yeah. Of course, getting appropriate care and treatment is essential to thriving. Can you walk us through the classes of treatment that are considered when choosing an AML treatment approach?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
Yeah. In terms of the different classes of treatments, I would say we think of probably three broad categories. One would be – sorry, four broad categories. One would be intensive chemotherapy. And that involves generally hospitalization. Another would be less intensive therapy. That could involve a mixture of inpatient or outpatient therapy. That could also include targeted therapy. The third would be clinical trials, which can include any of the former options I recommended, but they would be in an experimental study. And the fourth would be focusing solely on supportive care or hospice for patients that are too sick to receive therapy.
Other aspects that are specific, such as pills, versus IV, versus role of transplant, I don’t see it as being separate. You don’t go right to transplant when you have a diagnosis of AML. You have to be in remission. So, transplant, for instance, would come after an intensive therapy or after the less intensive chemotherapy. So, I see that as being the second step once I choose the right treatment option for the patient.
Katherine Banwell:
And when you’re talking about transplant, you’re talking about stem cell transplant, right?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
Yes. Stem cell transplant, bone marrow transplant – they mean the same thing. We recruit stem cells from donors that are related or unrelated, and we mobilize them from bone marrow to blood. And so, we can collect stem cells either from blood or bone marrow at this point. So, that’s exactly right.
Katherine Banwell:
And what about targeted therapy?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
We have targeted therapy available that’s IV or pill form. And so, any one of these options can be considered. But everything is very patient-specific, and I am very happy to tell you some of the categories and nuances of things that I look at, because I don’t usually just offer patients a menu.
I tell them what’s appropriate based on their patient characteristics, meaning what their liver function is, their heart function, their history, medical history, what their labs show. And then, I look at their disease history. We are now in an era where we have options. So, I look to see are there mutations that are targetable. Are there not? Are there markers on the surface of their leukemia cells that suggest that there’s a target for an immunotherapy?
So, we don’t offer classes per se without it being specific. So, I always look to see what are the patient disease-specific characteristics, and then I start the conversation about what the potential options could be and then what I think the best option would be for that particular case.
Katherine Banwell:
As a researcher, Dr. Garcia, you’re on the frontlines of AML treatment. Are there new and emerging therapies that patients should be aware of?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
Yeah. I think we’re at this really exciting point now where we had for a long time just been giving people standard two agent intensive chemotherapy. We have been studying in Phase II and Phase III settings, and even in Phase I – which means testing safety out for the first time. We’ve been moving a lot of treatments to more mature settings where we’re testing the addition of a third drug. So, for people that are getting intensive chemo, we’re looking at, “Can we add a pill to augment responses deep in them to reduce risk of disease returning?”
For less intensive chemotherapies, one of the most common regimens we now use is something called azacitidine (Vidaza), which is a hypomethylating agent that is given by IV or subcutaneous administration. Plus, a pill called venetoclax (Venclexta).
We helped to get that FDA-approved a couple of years ago. That combination of therapy, we call that a doublet, meaning it’s two drugs – because it’s so well-tolerated and active, we’re now asking the greedy question of, “Well, can we make it more active for patients since we’re seeing how well-tolerated it is?”
So, there have been a lot of therapies that are currently under investigation that are adding a third drug to these less-intensive doublets. So, there’s a lot of therapies under investigation to test, “Can we add an immunotherapy target? Is there another pill that we can add? Is there another targeting mutation to add to the doublet?” So, we’re looking at AML therapies from different angles. We’re looking at adding something to the existing new standard of care – those are these new, so-called, triplets.
We’re looking at still the role of cellular therapy or CAR Ts targeting leukemia cells from an immunotherapy standpoint.
That remains underdeveloped overall, and we have not succeeded as well, like our lymphoid colleagues in the lymphoma and acute lymphoblastic leukemia realm where there are drugs that are active and FDA-approved.
So, we’re still trying to identify the right target. But those are some of the areas that are currently under study.
Katherine Banwell:
You touched on this earlier, Dr. Garcia, but I’d like to get into a bit more detail. With all the treatment options available, how do you decide who gets what? Tell us what is considered when choosing treatment for a patient.
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
When I – this is a complicated question, because it’s not like you follow any particular algorithm. But when I meet a patient, I make a decision on what’s important to the patient and what’s their goal. If I know – I need to understand their overall health to get a sense of are there ongoing competing risk factors that are active and more likely to impede with response, ability to deliver chemo, ability to get to transplant, something that tells me that’s not a possibility, or is their age too advanced – meaning greater than 75 – where we know that some of the treatments are not safe to deliver in that setting?
So, I take a look at a patient’s overall health and age to make a decision. I take a look at bone marrow biopsy and lab findings to understand the flavor of their leukemia, from chromosomes to mutations. And because I am familiar with the data to give me a sense of what’s safe, what’s tolerable, and importantly what types of diseases, or subtypes of AML, would respond to one therapy over another, that’s how I formulate a recommendation.
And based on all of that, all together, I’ll talk to them about treating the AML in steps. The first step is getting them into a remission, which can be done regardless of therapy type. That means to get their bone marrow under control, blood counts to recover. The second step, which is a more involved conversation that I often give a little bit of a hint of, but I go into greater detail over time, because we will see each other quite a lot, whether in the hospital or in clinic, is how to keep them in remission.
And that’s where details about things like transplant come into play. I do my best to not overwhelm them, because when a patient hears the word transplant – and that’s often what they hear from family and friends because that’s what you can Google – they don’t know that there are many things, or many weeks of therapy, that have to happen in advance of transplant even being considered or happening. And transplant can’t even happen until someone’s in remission.
But that is always on the forefront of a leukemia doctor’s mind, “Can I bring this patient to a transplantation? How successful will I be and what else do I need to give them to get them there sooner, safer, with a deeper response?” So, that way transplant could be successful. Transplant, by the way, is when we give a patient someone else’s stem cells that match their HLA typing, or their white blood cell signature.
And it helps us to use someone else’s immune system to completely irradicate any microscopic leftover leukemia in a patient. But that is only successful when patients have good disease control or remissions. And that is only also successful if we have a donor for the patient, both of which require at least several weeks to a couple of months of therapy. But that process is always initiated and ongoing in the background. And so, we often do this in piecemeal, because getting a diagnosis is already overwhelming. Learning about treatment is overwhelming.
Learning about the frequency of labs, transfusions, being hospitalized, and then details about what a transplant would entail can be also overwhelming. But a lot of family and friends like to ask, because they feel like that is one way they might be able to help a patient. So, I know that they often eagerly ask the patient, “Well, what about this? How can I help?”
Katherine Banwell:
Right. I can imagine that patient preference is also considered. But what kind of questions should patients ask about their treatment regimen?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
I always tell patients that I care very much about things like travel, hotels, all that jazz. But I always tell them let’s first talk about their health, what treatment I would recommend based on the available options and what their disease would mostly respond to, because I want it to be successful. And I always tell them let’s reserve questions on how it’s going to be done for last. I call that the logistics. I will never bring up or recommend something that could never be possible. But that being said, I try not to let the commute determine the decision.
Whether or not there needs to be a hospitalization versus a hotel stay. I always consider then the background, but that financial decision should not drive the best treatment choice for a patient. Very fortunately, we’re in a country where patients have the ability – often, not always – to seek second opinions or to travel to academic centers.
And because AML is an emergent or life-threatening disease, many insurance providers allow patients to come up to a big center to be treated, which I think is more than appropriate. So, we get into details of logistics last, because that’s the one thing that we can often overcome by providing additional resources and support. In terms of patient preference, if that’s what you mean with that, I would say I leave logistics to last, but we always consider and we do our best to accommodate.
And that might be where we inform them we will look into getting a local partner to help us with additional therapies after the first month or upon discharge. So, it totally depends on the scenario for a patient, whether or not they have a local provider and a local hospital that could accommodate acute leukemia. I always tell patients ideally you don’t want to go to a place that only sees this once per year. You want to go to a place where everyone has seen it multiple times, including the nurses on the floors.
So, that way, when there’s a complication, everyone knows what to do. We don’t want any “surprises” when it’s really just run-of-the-mill standard stuff for us every day. In terms of what patients desire, we always keep that in the conversation of their level of support. Can they swallow pills? Are they able to cope with being in and out of the hospital? All that stuff gets considered, but I think if they hear about the plan, about what’s required, when my expectation would be for a response, when the frequency of trips to a big city would decrease, how I could get a local partner to help with some of the lab or transfusion burden.
Many of those preferences that they thought they had diminished, because they recognize that we found a way to make it work.
Katherine Banwell:
Okay. Well, that’s really good to know. You touched on oral therapies a bit ago, and I know that they’re available for certain patients. Do you have any advice for patients who are in charge now of administering their own therapy?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
Yeah, I think that taking pills in general is hard for anybody, whether they’re naïve to pills. I definitely have patients that have never been on anything, and suddenly they’re on many medicines, to other people that are managing multiple medical conditions and this is yet another burden to add. I would say having an oral regimen is wonderful. It offers a lot of convenience. But we are all very thoughtful, and we all need to be proactive about looking for drug-drug interactions, because often there could be increases in the chemotherapy presence when another drug is on board.
Sometimes, antibiotics are added on but they don’t realize it can add to side effects to chemotherapy. So, I would say number one is always make sure your oncology team is aware of the medications you are on or get recommended to add on in the midst of therapy, so we can make sure there are appropriate dosage estimates or if a particular drug should be avoided, then we can do that.
I would say, too, having oral therapies is great, but there’s also financial toxicity that comes with it. Sometimes copays can get hefty. So, just because it’s oral, it’s not always convenient financially. Also, when things are oral it can add to more GI or mal gut toxicity. So, we’re always keeping in mind how many oral therapies, what drugs they are, so we don’t increase nausea and diarrhea, which can happen frequently when you’re requiring the GI tract to absorb the therapies that are necessary to eliminate the disease.
So, all these things are under consideration. But to help people that are on oral therapies, it’s helpful to let your providers know if you’re noticing a pattern of nausea, so we can premedicate, have you take a nausea medicine before you take the chemo. You could also put a timer on your phone if you’re not used to taking medicines to serve as a reminder. You could create little calendars or check off on a paper calendar when you’ve taken a drug if you need help with reminding.
So, there are little tricks like that. I always consider using a pillbox if you don’t have other pills to mix in and if you’re the only one touching it. I don’t want anybody to be exposed to therapies that they shouldn’t be otherwise.
Katherine Banwell:
That’s good advice. Thank you. If a patient is feeling uncomfortable with the direction of their treatment plan or their care, should they consider a second opinion or even consulting a specialist?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
Oh, 100 percent. I would say – I think that I’m spoiled. I’m a leukemia specialist, so they’re already seeing a specialist when a patient sees me. I don’t take care of any other cancers. But, I would say, for anyone seeing any oncologist in general, I would – number one, it doesn’t do the medical team any favors if you withhold any feelings of how the treatment’s going. Meaning, if you feel uncomfortable or that you’re having symptoms or people are taking too long to get back to you based on your experience.
I would just make sure you do your best to at least let them know so that they have the ability to adjust or accommodate whatever need you might have that might be different than what they’re used to, because every patient’s different. Some people have a really great support system. Or they have a little bit of experience of being a patient. Different coping mechanisms. Everyone’s different. There’s no right or wrong. But I would just make sure that it’s clear with your existing team because they’re actively seeing you. Give them a chance to make the experience better.
I would for sure seek a second opinion. Don’t delay – I will just put this disclaimer. I would not delay treatment for an AML if your current doctor is giving you a good plan and you feel confident that they have looked into whether or not you need to go to a bigger leukemia center and all that other stuff. But if you feel like they are giving you a good plan, don’t delay your therapy in the beginning, because you might get sick.
If, however, there is demonstration of safety and time to see someone within a short timeframe for a second opinion at the time of diagnosis before treatment started, then that’s okay. But wouldn’t wait a few months to go looking around, because that could put your health at risk. Once you’re on treatment, seeking a second opinion, if you’re dissatisfied with your ongoing team, it’s fine. I always want patients to feel comfortable with their treatment plan.
But I would recognize that you want to make it clear to your current team that they’re still helping you and responsible for your treatment. Because if you, for instance, started seeing multiple doctors and they won’t know who should be helping to follow up on certain things, who’s going to be scheduling the next round of therapy. And that ends up putting more ownership unnecessarily onto the patient where they might not have needed to have all that extra responsibility. So, I would just say just make sure that’s clear. Yeah.
Katherine Banwell:
Dr. Garcia, you mentioned earlier the fact that some therapies can cause a lot of side effects, like nausea. And certainly, speaking up and telling your healthcare team how you’re feeling and what some of the symptoms and side effects are, that’s really essential. What is the impetus for someone to consider changing treatment if something is just absolutely not agreeing with them?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
So, there are many reasons to change a treatment. One is a patient doesn’t tolerate it. It depends on what the issue is. Is it something that’s serious, like a liver or enzyme abnormality that is very abnormal, or a new cardiac problem where it would warrant a change or a dose reduction? That makes sense. There is definitely – often, there’s a lot of guidance in the package inserts or within a clinical trial and how to manage that. But if patient has some intolerabilities that could be overcome with standard supportive care methods, I would make sure we’ve done that.
So, I would make sure you give you medical team the chance to fix any nausea. We have so many great antinausea drugs. I would want to make sure – or if constipation or diarrhea. It’s often a GI issue that patients get really bothered by.
I would try to delineate whether or not the side effect was really from the chemo or is from the leukemia that is not yet under control. Or is it another medical condition or a drug-drug interaction that was missed. So, I would do my best to make sure there wasn’t something that was fixable or something else that should be addressed. We otherwise would recommend changing therapy for an extreme intolerability if there was another equivalent better option. And if someone’s disease does not respond to treatment, then we would consider another therapy, too.
Katherine Banwell:
Dr. Garcia, I want to make sure that we get to some of the audience questions that were sent to us prior to this program. Let’s start with this one.
Jerry had this question. “How long can patients stay on azacitidine and venetoclax before relapse or toxicities force them to abandon treatment?”
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
So, this is a good question. I would say azacitidine and venetoclax just got FDA-approved just shy of five years now, and it’s totally changed our treatment paradigm in many great ways. It was initially approved for patients that could not get intensive chemotherapies or were above 75. We call these our older patients, our more vulnerable.
And we demonstrated and compared to azacitidine alone. It was given with placebo. We saw that the combination of azacitidine and venetoclax not only was safe, well-tolerated, it led to two-and-a-half times higher complete remission rates and impressively longer survival. That’s all we care about, patients are living longer. So, one of the things that we are appreciating in 2023 now, now that we have more patients on azacitidine and venetoclax, is that we have many patients that are long-term responders.
So, in the original clinical trial we’ve been reported – and we just submitted the update for the long-term follow-up that we presented at the American Society of Hematology meeting in 2022, in December.
We presented the long-term follow-up data that shows that responses can be durable and even as long as two years or three years in some patients. The average amount of time the patients are on therapy is somewhere between one-and-a-half to two years. But not every patient performs like an average patient.
We have some that respond for less time. We have some that respond for a longer time. So, I definitely have a few patients that have been on combination therapy, and we’ve gone to year three, then four, and two that got to year five. And that was using the original indication of older the 75, no intensive chemotherapy. Most of those patients in the original trial and led to the approval were not transplant candidates. But once those drugs got approved, more patients that were older started getting this therapy.
And so, the durability of this treatment might be longer for people that don’t have competing health problems and for specific mutation subtypes. There are a couple of mutation subtypes that include IDH2 and NPM1, where we’ve seen some extreme long-term responders.
And then, there are others that are much shorter. So, I would say it’s very individual. In terms of toxicities in general, the regimens very well-tolerated. And if it’s not, often it’s because there should be supportive care, prophylaxis, and adjustments to the dosing strategy, which has been well-published. Sometimes, if you have a treating oncologist that is less familiar, they won’t know the nuances of how to adjust the doses, so I would ask your local oncologist to reach out to anybody that was part of the original trials. Often, a lot of us are very responsive to helping out our colleagues to help patients to stay on treatment.
But at the end of the day, if a patient loses response or has a bad toxicity that makes it very difficult, we have to move on to another therapy.
Katherine Banwell:
Of course. Carrie sent in this question. “What percent of patients relapse and what percent of patients relapse more than once?”
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
Okay. So, this is a question that I can certainly answer, but I would say it depends on the context. So, if I was taking – any time a patient asks me that, I always ask them what they want to know and what they don’t want to hear, because sometimes hearing numbers can be really daunting to patients overall.
So, a very large number of patients with leukemia can go on to relapse, which is why, if you’re on a treatment like azacitidine and venetoclax, we continue it every month as long as we can with dose reductions to help with tolerability.
And that’s why, if you got that regimen or intensive chemo or another clinical trial and you get into remission, we ask the question of can we transplant this patient to do our best to cure them long-term to avoid and reduce the chance of a relapse. So, even with transplant, which remains our gold standard for long-term curability – it’s the only treatment we have that has a guaranteed track record of cure – not every patient that goes to transplant will remain in remission.
If I were to be asked, “Well, how many relapse,” I would say it depends. I would say if I took the average patient, maybe 40 to 50 percent will relapse. But if you ask me for certain mutation types it could be 90 percent are cured or only 20 percent are cured. So, it’s very individual. It depends on age. It depends on mutations. It depends on the level of response they had before they go to transplant.
So, I would say even though the word relapse is very scary or disease coming back is definitely a scary thing, there are a lot of people, including me, that are working on ways to reduce risk of relapse, improve how we transplant, improve the treatments around and after transplant, and improving frontline and relapse therapies.
I think you had a second question of what happens if you relapse once and then what about if relapse happens again? I would say that getting into remission the first time is always the easiest. The way I always think about it is, you kill off all the bad cells that are the easiest to die the first time around with chemotherapy. Anything that’s left behind are often the resistant types. And so, getting into a second remission or responding the second time around with treatment is doable, but it’s much harder.
So, I would say the majority of patients that relapse the first time will relapse the second time, unless we can successfully bridge them to a transplantation.
Katherine Banwell:
Yeah. Dr. Garcia, as we close out this conversation, I wanted to get your thoughts on where we stand with progress in helping people live longer and thrive with AML. What would you like to leave the audience with?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
I think that this is – I feel very lucky with when I entered the field, that in this last decade, as I’ve developed – my time at Dana-Farber, for instance – I’ve seen that there have been so many drugs that we helped to get approved that are now in the hands of local oncologists and other academic oncologists, suggesting that the clinical trials are a gateway to improving treatments and offering new options.
We’ve gotten better at understanding what mutations and chromosomes means and personalizing medicines, and that has allowed us to develop smarter and better clinical trials, which we hope we will get to keep approving and making more available to patients. So, I think that this is a really good time for AML, meaning we have more than one option, that is for sure. We can now think about what the patient wants, what the patient, and what their patient disease has in order to make a decision. We weren’t able to do that before.
So, we can really involve patients so they understand why we would recommend one option versus another. And we are still not done with investigation, even though many drugs got approved in the last five years. There’s a lot more progress to be made, especially in areas that we touched upon, from approving getting patients to transplant, reducing relapse risk, keeping people in remission. Those are all things that I’m personally working on in the clinical trial space and things a lot of my colleagues in the world are working on, too.
It’s very important to all of us. So, I would say be hopeful that we are not done. There’s a lot of great options out there. We really can personalize. There are a lot of options out there, but everyone will get offered their best therapy and the first-line therapy is the most important. And I am very hopeful that we will keep getting better at prolonging remissions and durability of those responses.
Katherine Banwell:
Dr. Garcia, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. It’s been a pleasure.
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
Thank you.
Katherine Banwell:
And thank you to all of our collaborators. To learn more about AML and to access tools to help you become a proactive patient, visit powerfulpatients.org. I’m Katherine Banwell. Thanks for being with us.
Thriving With AML | Tips and Support for Navigating Treatment
Thriving With AML | Tips and Support for Navigating Treatment from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
How can you navigate care and thrive with acute myeloid leukemia (AML)? In this webinar, Dr. Jacqueline Garcia, an AML specialist and researcher, discusses the treatment and management of AML. Dr. Garcia will review factors that impact therapy choices and shares advice and resources for people living with AML.
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia is an oncologist and AML researcher at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Learn more about Dr. Garcia.
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Transcript:
Katherine Banwell:
Hello, and welcome. I’m Katherine Banwell, your host for this webinar. Today’s program is about how to live and thrive with AML. We’re going to discuss how to live well with AML and why you should play an active role in your care. Before we get into the discussion, please remember that this program is not a substitute for seeking medical advice. Please refer to your healthcare team about what might be best for you.
Well, let’s meet our guest today. Joining me is Dr. Jacqueline Garcia. Dr. Garcia, welcome. Would you please introduce yourself?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
Yes. Hi. My name is Jacqueline Garcia. I’m an oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. I’m a clinical translational investigator. And what this means is I take care of patients with acute and chronic leukemias. I focus mainly on patients with acute myeloid leukemia. The investigator part means, in addition to seeing patients, I spend a lot of time writing, developing, and executing clinical trials in the AML space. We know that there have been so many wonderful therapies that we helped to move froward and bring to the field and so there is more work to be done. So, having active investigations is a key part of this role.
Katherine Banwell:
Excellent. Well, thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to join us today. We really appreciate it. We start all of our webinars in our Thrive Series with the same question. In your experience, what does it mean to thrive with AML?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
I think that’s a really great question and I’m glad you’re asking me now as opposed to a decade ago. In the last several years, we’ve had a tremendous number of drugs that got FDA-approved and a lot of exciting clinical trials that have not only shown efficacy and safety but really some long-term responses. So, we can now focus on not just finding what drug can work, which used to be our problem 10 years ago, since we had very limited therapeutic tools, meaning treatments. We now have several treatments available.
So, when I think of what it means to thrive, it’s identifying the right treatment for each individual patient with acute myeloid leukemia, because what might be recommended for one patient may not be the right for another. And there are many different patient- and disease-related factors that go into that decision-making.
Katherine Banwell:
Thank you for that, Dr. Garcia. It helps guide us as we move into our conversation. Typically, there are a number of team members to care for a patient. Who is part of an AML healthcare team?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
Absolutely. We definitely cannot work on our own. Our team is very large, and it’s because these patients require a lot of support. At a bare minimum, a healthcare team will include at least one physician or an oncologist. The AML healthcare team might also include a second oncologist – that could be a bone marrow transplant doctor.
Other members that are very critical include having a mid-leveler available that’s a physician assistant or a nurse practitioner. Often, an oncologist who runs a busy practice, who takes care of patients that could be very sick, like AML, they work in partnership with often very talented physician assistants and nurse practitioners. I know I do.
In addition to that, I’m at an academic center so I’m super fortunate. I have really amazing and very smart hematology oncology fellows and residents that also follow to learn how to take care of patients. But we also, in the background, that patients don’t see – we have a pharmacist that helps us with making sure that drugs are prescribed correctly. They often call the patients with oral therapies to follow up. We have financial resource teams to help patients, to link them to LLS for support for bills that might come up, or transportation, or linking them up to other services that could help to defray or reduce costs.
So, the healthcare team is quite extensive. But in terms of those that are patient-facing, it’s primarily the MDM that are mid-leveler. Some teams operate also with a nurse or a nurse care coordinator. That’s pretty common, too. And that person helps to not only schedule but also to answer pages or phone calls from patients if the medical team is not doing that.
Katherine Banwell: What about a social worker or psychologist?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
Oh. Yes. Yes. So, absolutely. So, every patient can be offered, if needed, access to an inpatient or outpatient social worker. Often, if my patients are admitted we have them see a social worker because that’s fairly seamless. Otherwise, for outpatient, if we identify any particular needs or there’s an interest, we’ll link them up with a social worker. This is the same that goes for physical therapy, or nutritionists, or those other ancillary services that can be really critical when patients are getting started.
Katherine Banwell:
Yeah. Of course, getting appropriate care and treatment is essential to thriving. Can you walk us through the classes of treatment that are considered when choosing an AML treatment approach?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
Yeah. In terms of the different classes of treatments, I would say we think of probably three broad categories. One would be – sorry, four broad categories. One would be intensive chemotherapy. And that involves generally hospitalization. Another would be less intensive therapy. That could involve a mixture of inpatient or outpatient therapy. That could also include targeted therapy. The third would be clinical trials, which can include any of the former options I recommended, but they would be in an experimental study. And the fourth would be focusing solely on supportive care or hospice for patients that are too sick to receive therapy.
Other aspects that are specific, such as pills, versus IV, versus role of transplant, I don’t see it as being separate. You don’t go right to transplant when you have a diagnosis of AML. You have to be in remission. So, transplant, for instance, would come after an intensive therapy or after the less intensive chemotherapy. So, I see that as being the second step once I choose the right treatment option for the patient.
Katherine Banwell:
And when you’re talking about transplant, you’re talking about stem cell transplant, right?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
Yes. Stem cell transplant, bone marrow transplant – they mean the same thing. We recruit stem cells from donors that are related or unrelated, and we mobilize them from bone marrow to blood. And so, we can collect stem cells either from blood or bone marrow at this point. So, that’s exactly right.
Katherine Banwell:
And what about targeted therapy?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
We have targeted therapy available that’s IV or pill form. And so, any one of these options can be considered. But everything is very patient-specific, and I am very happy to tell you some of the categories and nuances of things that I look at, because I don’t usually just offer patients a menu.
I tell them what’s appropriate based on their patient characteristics, meaning what their liver function is, their heart function, their history, medical history, what their labs show. And then, I look at their disease history. We are now in an era where we have options. So, I look to see are there mutations that are targetable. Are there not? Are there markers on the surface of their leukemia cells that suggest that there’s a target for an immunotherapy?
So, we don’t offer classes per se without it being specific. So, I always look to see what are the patient disease-specific characteristics, and then I start the conversation about what the potential options could be and then what I think the best option would be for that particular case.
Katherine Banwell:
As a researcher, Dr. Garcia, you’re on the frontlines of AML treatment. Are there new and emerging therapies that patients should be aware of?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
Yeah. I think we’re at this really exciting point now where we had for a long time just been giving people standard two agent intensive chemotherapy. We have been studying in Phase II and Phase III settings, and even in Phase I – which means testing safety out for the first time. We’ve been moving a lot of treatments to more mature settings where we’re testing the addition of a third drug. So, for people that are getting intensive chemo, we’re looking at, “Can we add a pill to augment responses deep in them to reduce risk of disease returning?”
For less intensive chemotherapies, one of the most common regimens we now use is something called azacitidine (Vidaza), which is a hypomethylating agent that is given by IV or subcutaneous administration. Plus, a pill called venetoclax (Venclexta).
We helped to get that FDA-approved a couple of years ago. That combination of therapy, we call that a doublet, meaning it’s two drugs – because it’s so well-tolerated and active, we’re now asking the greedy question of, “Well, can we make it more active for patients since we’re seeing how well-tolerated it is?”
So, there have been a lot of therapies that are currently under investigation that are adding a third drug to these less-intensive doublets. So, there’s a lot of therapies under investigation to test, “Can we add an immunotherapy target? Is there another pill that we can add? Is there another targeting mutation to add to the doublet?” So, we’re looking at AML therapies from different angles. We’re looking at adding something to the existing new standard of care – those are these new, so-called, triplets.
We’re looking at still the role of cellular therapy or CAR Ts targeting leukemia cells from an immunotherapy standpoint.
That remains underdeveloped overall, and we have not succeeded as well, like our lymphoid colleagues in the lymphoma and acute lymphoblastic leukemia realm where there are drugs that are active and FDA-approved.
So, we’re still trying to identify the right target. But those are some of the areas that are currently under study.
Katherine Banwell:
You touched on this earlier, Dr. Garcia, but I’d like to get into a bit more detail. With all the treatment options available, how do you decide who gets what? Tell us what is considered when choosing treatment for a patient.
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
When I – this is a complicated question, because it’s not like you follow any particular algorithm. But when I meet a patient, I make a decision on what’s important to the patient and what’s their goal. If I know – I need to understand their overall health to get a sense of are there ongoing competing risk factors that are active and more likely to impede with response, ability to deliver chemo, ability to get to transplant, something that tells me that’s not a possibility, or is their age too advanced – meaning greater than 75 – where we know that some of the treatments are not safe to deliver in that setting?
So, I take a look at a patient’s overall health and age to make a decision. I take a look at bone marrow biopsy and lab findings to understand the flavor of their leukemia, from chromosomes to mutations. And because I am familiar with the data to give me a sense of what’s safe, what’s tolerable, and importantly what types of diseases, or subtypes of AML, would respond to one therapy over another, that’s how I formulate a recommendation.
And based on all of that, all together, I’ll talk to them about treating the AML in steps. The first step is getting them into a remission, which can be done regardless of therapy type. That means to get their bone marrow under control, blood counts to recover. The second step, which is a more involved conversation that I often give a little bit of a hint of, but I go into greater detail over time, because we will see each other quite a lot, whether in the hospital or in clinic, is how to keep them in remission.
And that’s where details about things like transplant come into play. I do my best to not overwhelm them, because when a patient hears the word transplant – and that’s often what they hear from family and friends because that’s what you can Google – they don’t know that there are many things, or many weeks of therapy, that have to happen in advance of transplant even being considered or happening. And transplant can’t even happen until someone’s in remission.
But that is always on the forefront of a leukemia doctor’s mind, “Can I bring this patient to a transplantation? How successful will I be and what else do I need to give them to get them there sooner, safer, with a deeper response?” So, that way transplant could be successful. Transplant, by the way, is when we give a patient someone else’s stem cells that match their HLA typing, or their white blood cell signature.
And it helps us to use someone else’s immune system to completely irradicate any microscopic leftover leukemia in a patient. But that is only successful when patients have good disease control or remissions. And that is only also successful if we have a donor for the patient, both of which require at least several weeks to a couple of months of therapy. But that process is always initiated and ongoing in the background. And so, we often do this in piecemeal, because getting a diagnosis is already overwhelming. Learning about treatment is overwhelming.
Learning about the frequency of labs, transfusions, being hospitalized, and then details about what a transplant would entail can be also overwhelming. But a lot of family and friends like to ask, because they feel like that is one way they might be able to help a patient. So, I know that they often eagerly ask the patient, “Well, what about this? How can I help?”
Katherine Banwell:
Right. I can imagine that patient preference is also considered. But what kind of questions should patients ask about their treatment regimen?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
I always tell patients that I care very much about things like travel, hotels, all that jazz. But I always tell them let’s first talk about their health, what treatment I would recommend based on the available options and what their disease would mostly respond to, because I want it to be successful. And I always tell them let’s reserve questions on how it’s going to be done for last. I call that the logistics. I will never bring up or recommend something that could never be possible. But that being said, I try not to let the commute determine the decision.
Whether or not there needs to be a hospitalization versus a hotel stay. I always consider then the background, but that financial decision should not drive the best treatment choice for a patient. Very fortunately, we’re in a country where patients have the ability – often, not always – to seek second opinions or to travel to academic centers.
And because AML is an emergent or life-threatening disease, many insurance providers allow patients to come up to a big center to be treated, which I think is more than appropriate. So, we get into details of logistics last, because that’s the one thing that we can often overcome by providing additional resources and support. In terms of patient preference, if that’s what you mean with that, I would say I leave logistics to last, but we always consider and we do our best to accommodate.
And that might be where we inform them we will look into getting a local partner to help us with additional therapies after the first month or upon discharge. So, it totally depends on the scenario for a patient, whether or not they have a local provider and a local hospital that could accommodate acute leukemia. I always tell patients ideally you don’t want to go to a place that only sees this once per year. You want to go to a place where everyone has seen it multiple times, including the nurses on the floors.
So, that way, when there’s a complication, everyone knows what to do. We don’t want any “surprises” when it’s really just run-of-the-mill standard stuff for us every day. In terms of what patients desire, we always keep that in the conversation of their level of support. Can they swallow pills? Are they able to cope with being in and out of the hospital? All that stuff gets considered, but I think if they hear about the plan, about what’s required, when my expectation would be for a response, when the frequency of trips to a big city would decrease, how I could get a local partner to help with some of the lab or transfusion burden.
Many of those preferences that they thought they had diminished, because they recognize that we found a way to make it work.
Katherine Banwell:
Okay. Well, that’s really good to know. You touched on oral therapies a bit ago, and I know that they’re available for certain patients. Do you have any advice for patients who are in charge now of administering their own therapy?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
Yeah, I think that taking pills in general is hard for anybody, whether they’re naïve to pills. I definitely have patients that have never been on anything, and suddenly they’re on many medicines, to other people that are managing multiple medical conditions and this is yet another burden to add. I would say having an oral regimen is wonderful. It offers a lot of convenience. But we are all very thoughtful, and we all need to be proactive about looking for drug-drug interactions, because often there could be increases in the chemotherapy presence when another drug is on board.
Sometimes, antibiotics are added on but they don’t realize it can add to side effects to chemotherapy. So, I would say number one is always make sure your oncology team is aware of the medications you are on or get recommended to add on in the midst of therapy, so we can make sure there are appropriate dosage estimates or if a particular drug should be avoided, then we can do that.
I would say, too, having oral therapies is great, but there’s also financial toxicity that comes with it. Sometimes copays can get hefty. So, just because it’s oral, it’s not always convenient financially. Also, when things are oral it can add to more GI or mal gut toxicity. So, we’re always keeping in mind how many oral therapies, what drugs they are, so we don’t increase nausea and diarrhea, which can happen frequently when you’re requiring the GI tract to absorb the therapies that are necessary to eliminate the disease.
So, all these things are under consideration. But to help people that are on oral therapies, it’s helpful to let your providers know if you’re noticing a pattern of nausea, so we can premedicate, have you take a nausea medicine before you take the chemo. You could also put a timer on your phone if you’re not used to taking medicines to serve as a reminder. You could create little calendars or check off on a paper calendar when you’ve taken a drug if you need help with reminding.
So, there are little tricks like that. I always consider using a pillbox if you don’t have other pills to mix in and if you’re the only one touching it. I don’t want anybody to be exposed to therapies that they shouldn’t be otherwise.
Katherine Banwell:
That’s good advice. Thank you. If a patient is feeling uncomfortable with the direction of their treatment plan or their care, should they consider a second opinion or even consulting a specialist?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
Oh, 100 percent. I would say – I think that I’m spoiled. I’m a leukemia specialist, so they’re already seeing a specialist when a patient sees me. I don’t take care of any other cancers. But, I would say, for anyone seeing any oncologist in general, I would – number one, it doesn’t do the medical team any favors if you withhold any feelings of how the treatment’s going. Meaning, if you feel uncomfortable or that you’re having symptoms or people are taking too long to get back to you based on your experience.
I would just make sure you do your best to at least let them know so that they have the ability to adjust or accommodate whatever need you might have that might be different than what they’re used to, because every patient’s different. Some people have a really great support system. Or they have a little bit of experience of being a patient. Different coping mechanisms. Everyone’s different. There’s no right or wrong. But I would just make sure that it’s clear with your existing team because they’re actively seeing you. Give them a chance to make the experience better.
I would for sure seek a second opinion. Don’t delay – I will just put this disclaimer. I would not delay treatment for an AML if your current doctor is giving you a good plan and you feel confident that they have looked into whether or not you need to go to a bigger leukemia center and all that other stuff. But if you feel like they are giving you a good plan, don’t delay your therapy in the beginning, because you might get sick.
If, however, there is demonstration of safety and time to see someone within a short timeframe for a second opinion at the time of diagnosis before treatment started, then that’s okay. But wouldn’t wait a few months to go looking around, because that could put your health at risk. Once you’re on treatment, seeking a second opinion, if you’re dissatisfied with your ongoing team, it’s fine. I always want patients to feel comfortable with their treatment plan.
But I would recognize that you want to make it clear to your current team that they’re still helping you and responsible for your treatment. Because if you, for instance, started seeing multiple doctors and they won’t know who should be helping to follow up on certain things, who’s going to be scheduling the next round of therapy. And that ends up putting more ownership unnecessarily onto the patient where they might not have needed to have all that extra responsibility. So, I would just say just make sure that’s clear. Yeah.
Katherine Banwell:
Dr. Garcia, you mentioned earlier the fact that some therapies can cause a lot of side effects, like nausea. And certainly, speaking up and telling your healthcare team how you’re feeling and what some of the symptoms and side effects are, that’s really essential. What is the impetus for someone to consider changing treatment if something is just absolutely not agreeing with them?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
So, there are many reasons to change a treatment. One is a patient doesn’t tolerate it. It depends on what the issue is. Is it something that’s serious, like a liver or enzyme abnormality that is very abnormal, or a new cardiac problem where it would warrant a change or a dose reduction? That makes sense. There is definitely – often, there’s a lot of guidance in the package inserts or within a clinical trial and how to manage that. But if patient has some intolerabilities that could be overcome with standard supportive care methods, I would make sure we’ve done that.
So, I would make sure you give you medical team the chance to fix any nausea. We have so many great antinausea drugs. I would want to make sure – or if constipation or diarrhea. It’s often a GI issue that patients get really bothered by.
I would try to delineate whether or not the side effect was really from the chemo or is from the leukemia that is not yet under control. Or is it another medical condition or a drug-drug interaction that was missed. So, I would do my best to make sure there wasn’t something that was fixable or something else that should be addressed. We otherwise would recommend changing therapy for an extreme intolerability if there was another equivalent better option. And if someone’s disease does not respond to treatment, then we would consider another therapy, too.
Katherine Banwell:
Dr. Garcia, I want to make sure that we get to some of the audience questions that were sent to us prior to this program. Let’s start with this one.
Jerry had this question. “How long can patients stay on azacitidine and venetoclax before relapse or toxicities force them to abandon treatment?”
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
So, this is a good question. I would say azacitidine and venetoclax just got FDA-approved just shy of five years now, and it’s totally changed our treatment paradigm in many great ways. It was initially approved for patients that could not get intensive chemotherapies or were above 75. We call these our older patients, our more vulnerable.
And we demonstrated and compared to azacitidine alone. It was given with placebo. We saw that the combination of azacitidine and venetoclax not only was safe, well-tolerated, it led to two-and-a-half times higher complete remission rates and impressively longer survival. That’s all we care about, patients are living longer. So, one of the things that we are appreciating in 2023 now, now that we have more patients on azacitidine and venetoclax, is that we have many patients that are long-term responders.
So, in the original clinical trial we’ve been reported – and we just submitted the update for the long-term follow-up that we presented at the American Society of Hematology meeting in 2022, in December.
We presented the long-term follow-up data that shows that responses can be durable and even as long as two years or three years in some patients. The average amount of time the patients are on therapy is somewhere between one-and-a-half to two years. But not every patient performs like an average patient.
We have some that respond for less time. We have some that respond for a longer time. So, I definitely have a few patients that have been on combination therapy, and we’ve gone to year three, then four, and two that got to year five. And that was using the original indication of older the 75, no intensive chemotherapy. Most of those patients in the original trial and led to the approval were not transplant candidates. But once those drugs got approved, more patients that were older started getting this therapy.
And so, the durability of this treatment might be longer for people that don’t have competing health problems and for specific mutation subtypes. There are a couple of mutation subtypes that include IDH2 and NPM1, where we’ve seen some extreme long-term responders.
And then, there are others that are much shorter. So, I would say it’s very individual. In terms of toxicities in general, the regimens very well-tolerated. And if it’s not, often it’s because there should be supportive care, prophylaxis, and adjustments to the dosing strategy, which has been well-published. Sometimes, if you have a treating oncologist that is less familiar, they won’t know the nuances of how to adjust the doses, so I would ask your local oncologist to reach out to anybody that was part of the original trials. Often, a lot of us are very responsive to helping out our colleagues to help patients to stay on treatment.
But at the end of the day, if a patient loses response or has a bad toxicity that makes it very difficult, we have to move on to another therapy.
Katherine Banwell:
Of course. Carrie sent in this question. “What percent of patients relapse and what percent of patients relapse more than once?”
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
Okay. So, this is a question that I can certainly answer, but I would say it depends on the context. So, if I was taking – any time a patient asks me that, I always ask them what they want to know and what they don’t want to hear, because sometimes hearing numbers can be really daunting to patients overall.
So, a very large number of patients with leukemia can go on to relapse, which is why, if you’re on a treatment like azacitidine and venetoclax, we continue it every month as long as we can with dose reductions to help with tolerability.
And that’s why, if you got that regimen or intensive chemo or another clinical trial and you get into remission, we ask the question of can we transplant this patient to do our best to cure them long-term to avoid and reduce the chance of a relapse. So, even with transplant, which remains our gold standard for long-term curability – it’s the only treatment we have that has a guaranteed track record of cure – not every patient that goes to transplant will remain in remission.
If I were to be asked, “Well, how many relapse,” I would say it depends. I would say if I took the average patient, maybe 40 to 50 percent will relapse. But if you ask me for certain mutation types it could be 90 percent are cured or only 20 percent are cured. So, it’s very individual. It depends on age. It depends on mutations. It depends on the level of response they had before they go to transplant.
So, I would say even though the word relapse is very scary or disease coming back is definitely a scary thing, there are a lot of people, including me, that are working on ways to reduce risk of relapse, improve how we transplant, improve the treatments around and after transplant, and improving frontline and relapse therapies.
I think you had a second question of what happens if you relapse once and then what about if relapse happens again? I would say that getting into remission the first time is always the easiest. The way I always think about it is, you kill off all the bad cells that are the easiest to die the first time around with chemotherapy. Anything that’s left behind are often the resistant types. And so, getting into a second remission or responding the second time around with treatment is doable, but it’s much harder.
So, I would say the majority of patients that relapse the first time will relapse the second time, unless we can successfully bridge them to a transplantation.
Katherine Banwell:
Yeah. Dr. Garcia, as we close out this conversation, I wanted to get your thoughts on where we stand with progress in helping people live longer and thrive with AML. What would you like to leave the audience with?
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
I think that this is – I feel very lucky with when I entered the field, that in this last decade, as I’ve developed – my time at Dana-Farber, for instance – I’ve seen that there have been so many drugs that we helped to get approved that are now in the hands of local oncologists and other academic oncologists, suggesting that the clinical trials are a gateway to improving treatments and offering new options.
We’ve gotten better at understanding what mutations and chromosomes means and personalizing medicines, and that has allowed us to develop smarter and better clinical trials, which we hope we will get to keep approving and making more available to patients. So, I think that this is a really good time for AML, meaning we have more than one option, that is for sure. We can now think about what the patient wants, what the patient, and what their patient disease has in order to make a decision. We weren’t able to do that before.
So, we can really involve patients so they understand why we would recommend one option versus another. And we are still not done with investigation, even though many drugs got approved in the last five years. There’s a lot more progress to be made, especially in areas that we touched upon, from approving getting patients to transplant, reducing relapse risk, keeping people in remission. Those are all things that I’m personally working on in the clinical trial space and things a lot of my colleagues in the world are working on, too.
It’s very important to all of us. So, I would say be hopeful that we are not done. There’s a lot of great options out there. We really can personalize. There are a lot of options out there, but everyone will get offered their best therapy and the first-line therapy is the most important. And I am very hopeful that we will keep getting better at prolonging remissions and durability of those responses.
Katherine Banwell:
Dr. Garcia, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. It’s been a pleasure.
Dr. Jacqueline Garcia:
Thank you.
Katherine Banwell:
And thank you to all of our collaborators. To learn more about AML and to access tools to help you become a proactive patient, visit powerfulpatients.org. I’m Katherine Banwell. Thanks for being with us.
What Is the AGILE Study? Research for AML Patients With the IDH1 Mutation
What Is the AGILE Study? Research for AML Patients With the IDH1 Mutation from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
AML expert Dr. Omer Jamy reviews the results of the AGILE study, a clinical trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of ivosidenib + azacitidine vs placebo + azacitidine in patients with previously untreated AML with an IDH1 mutation.
Dr. Omer Jamy is a Leukemia and Bone Marrow Transplant Physician and Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Learn more about Dr. Omer Jamy.
Related Resources:
Advances in the Treatment of Relapsed/Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) |
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Essential Testing Optimizing AML Care with Personalized Medicine |
Transcript:
Katherine Banwell:
Dr. Jamy, data was presented at ASCO from the agile study. What is the study and what does the news mean for AML patients?
Dr. Omer Jamy:
Yes, thank you. So, the AGILE study is basically a randomized Phase III study. It is specifically for patients with AML who harbor an IDH1 or isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 mutation. Now IDH1 mutation is thought to be rare.
It occurs in around six to 12 percent of patients with acute myeloid leukemia. So, a few years ago there was a drug approved by the FDA to treat patients in the relapsed or refractory setting with an IDH1 mutation. And that drug is called ivosidenib (Tibsovo). And this drug is also approved for elderly patients ineligible for intensive chemotherapy but it was mainly initially approved for the relapsed/refractory setting.
So, all of these drugs when they initially get approved – so this is targeted therapy. It’s targeting IDH1 mutant AMLs, so patients with AML without an IDH mutation will not benefit from such a drug. So, when you find targeted therapy, the general workflow is it gets tested in the later settings. If it looks promising, then people try to bring it in the upfront settings. So, this was a Phase III study of newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia patients harboring an IDH mutation.
And it randomized them to a combination of azacitidine plus ivosidenib versus azacitidine plus placebo.
When the study was started, the standard of care for patients ineligible to receive intensive chemotherapy was azacitidine (Vidaza). So, this study again, just to highlight, focused on patients who were not ineligible for intensive chemotherapy. So, these may be patients who were either above the age of 75 or below the age of 75 but had comorbidities which would have prevented them from receiving intensive chemotherapy. These comorbidities could be any organ dysfunction such as the heart, kidneys, liver, lung, or poor performance status. So, the primary endpoint of the study was event free survival. And the primary endpoint of the study was met with a hazard ratio of .33 in favor of the combination of azacitidine and ivosidenib. The study also showed that overall survival was improved in patients getting the combination compared to patients just getting azacitidine and placebo.
Which was roughly around 20 to 24 months versus eight months for the placebo and azacitidine arm. And then obviously when you combine drugs you want to make sure that by adding two drugs, you’re not causing more toxicity. So, the toxicity profile between the two arms was similar actually. They saw less infections and neutropenia in the ivosidenib and azacitidine arm compared to azacitidine alone. So, that was basically the AGILE study where they looked at patients with IDH mutant acute myeloid leukemia.
How Can You Thrive With AML? Advice for Navigating Care.
How Can You Thrive With AML? Advice for Navigating Care. from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
How can you thrive with AML? In this animated explainer video, an AML specialist and patient discuss how to make informed decisions about your care and live a full life with AML.
Related Resources:
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Transcript:
Raquel:
Hi, I’m Raquel. Nice to meet you! I am living with acute myeloid leukemia, or AML. When I was first diagnosed, my husband and I were very overwhelmed by a cancer diagnosis. But once I found the right care team and learned more about my disease and treatment options, I’ve been living a full life.
Meet, Dr. Shaw – my doctor.
Dr. Shaw:
Hi! I’m Dr. Shaw, and I’m a hematologist specializing in the care of people with AML.
AML is a cancer of the blood and bone marrow, and it is the most common acute leukemia in adults in the United States. Because this is an acute leukemia, it progresses quickly and should be treated immediately.
There are typically two phases of therapy:
- Induction therapy is the first line of treatment and is meant to induce remission.
- The second phase is consolidation therapy which is meant to maintain the remission.
As Raquel mentioned, with the right team and care plan, it is possible to live a full life and to thrive with AML.
Raquel:
It’s so true. Navigating my care has been much easier, because I partner with my healthcare team – it makes me feel involved and confident in decisions.
Dr. Shaw:
That’s right, Raquel. When considering treatment, it’s important to weigh all of your options.
While your healthcare team is the expert when it comes to the clinical side of your disease, you, as the patient, are the expert on how treatment will impact YOU and your lifestyle.
Raquel:
And as someone who knows my needs well, my husband is another key member of my team. He comes with me to appointments and takes notes during visits, and when it is time to make decisions about my care, we both feel well-informed about the options.
So, Dr. Shaw – what factors should be considered when choosing an AML treatment?
Dr. Shaw:
Well, it’s important to note that everyone’s AML is different, so what may work for one person may not work for another. In general, we consider certain factors, such as:
- The patient’s age and overall health.
- Any pre-existing health issues.
- Test results, including any mutational testing results.
- Finally, and most importantly, the patient’s treatment goals and preference.
Raquel:
And I like to make informed decisions. So, when considering therapy, I also did some research on my own, and then discussed the information with my healthcare team. It helped my husband and me understand what we’d learned, and confirmed our decision.
Dr. Shaw, what sort of questions should patients ask their doctor when considering a treatment plan?
Dr. Shaw:
Great question. When choosing therapy, patients should ask:
- How is the treatment administered, and how often will I need treatment?
- What are the potential side effects of the treatment?
- How will the effectiveness of the treatment be monitored?
- And, what are options if this treatment doesn’t work for me?
- Is there a clinical trial that might be right for me?
Raquel:
That’s great advice. Once you’ve begun treatment, it’s important to continue to share how you are feeling with your healthcare team – be sure to mention any side effects or symptoms you may be having.
Dr. Shaw:
That’s right, Raquel. If you speak up about what’s bothering you, we can usually find a way to manage the issue.
It’s also important point to tell your doctor if you’ve missed a dose of your medication. Many of the newer AML therapies are self-administered, and it’s important to let us know so we can adjust the plan if necessary.
So, Raquel, can you share advice for thriving with AML?
Raquel:
- First, understand and participate in treatment decisions. Be sure to educate yourself about AML and share your personal preferences when choosing therapy.
- Then, communicate regularly with your healthcare team – don’t wait to share information only when you have an appointment.
- And, utilize your whole team – nurses, nurse practitioners, and others, are all there to help you.
- Use your patient portal. You can view lab work and test results, or even use the messaging feature to communicate with your team.
- Bring a friend or loved one to appointments and always write down any questions or concerns in advance.
Dr. Shaw:
And, most importantly, remember you are at the center of your care. Advocate for yourself!
To learn more, visit powerfulpatients.org/AML to access a library of tools. Thanks for joining us!
Emerging AML Treatment Classes Showing Promise
Emerging AML Treatment Classes Showing Promise from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
What therapies are in development for acute myeloid leukemia (AML)? Dr. Ann-Kathrin Eisfeld discusses the latest research for AML treatment, including menin inhibitors and CAR T-cell therapy.
Dr. Ann-Kathrin Eisfeld is Director of the Clara D. Bloomfield Center for Leukemia Outcomes Research at The Ohio State University and a member of the Leukemia Research Program at the OSUCCC – James. Learn more about Dr. Eisfeld.
Related Resources:
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Transcript:
Katherine Banwell:
Are there therapies in development that are showing promise for patients with AML?
Dr. Eisfeld:
There are so many of those. It’s hard to count. And this makes me very happy. There are exciting and again, targeted drugs.
Once drug class is called menin inhibitors, which we – which were just published that show high promise.
And again, very difficult to treat several groups of patients who harbor chromosome changes in MLL genes in here. So, that is a very exciting option.
And there’s very exciting treatments with respect to what you call antibodies – monoclonal antibodies that attacks the surface proteins that are being checked regularly. And one of those, for example, is called magrolimab. And that has even promise in these high-risk leukemias or adverse risk leukemias.
And then we are not there yet, but I’m sure we will be in the not too near future. There are also multiple trials that are looking at what we call CAR-T cells. But patients might have heard about for lymphomas or acute lymphoblastic leukemias. AML is a little more tricky with respect to those.
But we’ve seen pre-clinical studies that look really exciting. And I think it’s just going to be just a little more fine-tuning to make those easier, available, and more targeted for AML patients. And I’m very much looking forward to seeing those come more onto the market.
Katherine Banwell:
You mentioned the new menin inhibitors. Who are they right for?
Dr. Eisfeld:
We try to find out more, but definitely for patients that have been shown to be beneficial for patients who have chromosomal and rearrangements of the MLL gene or KMT2A gene. And there’s also good data on patients who have NPM1 mutations.
Even though we know – and these are mutations who harbor this kind of genetic change – have now a plethora, which is a great, of treatment options.
Because we know even conventional chemotherapy has been working decently well in them. We know that venetoclax also is supposed to work very well in them. But again, the data on the menin inhibitor with respect to NPM1 mutations is very exciting.
