Tag Archive for: MRD-positive

A Patient’s Proactive Path to an Acute Myeloid Leukemia Diagnosis

A Patient’s Proactive Path to an Acute Myeloid Leukemia Diagnosis from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Meet Paloma, a 58-year-old acute myeloid leukemia (AML) survivor. After experiencing breathlessness, sore gums, and other symptoms that were initially misdiagnosed, she trusted her instincts and sought further medical support, leading to her AML diagnosis. Discover Paloma’s journey and the vital importance of being proactive and staying [ACT]IVATED in your cancer care.

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Transcript:

Being ACTIVATED in your cancer care is critical and also a continuous journey.  My name is Paloma, and I’m eager to share my journey as an acute myeloid leukemia patient in the hopes that it will help other patients and families. AML doesn’t discriminate; it can affect anyone, regardless of lifestyle or healthy eating habits.

I was 58 when I was diagnosed with AML, and my diagnosis was pretty shocking to me. I learned that you really need to trust your instincts when it comes to your health. I felt like something was off with my body, but my initial symptoms were only some breathlessness upon exertion and sore gums. But then additional symptoms started including a dry cough, some flu-like symptoms, and lumps under my armpits. I saw my primary care provider, and she prescribed antibiotics and sent me for a chest x-ray that came back without issues. 

When my breathlessness worsened along with profound fatigue, my doctor then sent me to get an ECG and additional blood tests to help determine what might be wrong. While I was waiting for my test results, my co-workers noticed that I looked thinner with my skin also being paler than usual. This was just the beginning of my AML journey. My blood tests came back with abnormal hemoglobin and blast levels, and my doctor arranged for me to be admitted to a well-regarded cancer center. I was fortunate that it was only 20 miles away but realize that not all cancer patients are this fortunate.

After seeing my AML specialist at the cancer center, he wanted to start my chemotherapy right away to fight the cancer. I was fortunate that I didn’t have issues with my intravenous line for receiving my chemotherapy. But I learned that this can be a common issue for AML patients after I joined an online AML support group. I had my first round of chemotherapy, and my daughter was able to visit me during this time. However, my care team kept monitoring my neutrophils and decided that I needed to start a second round of chemotherapy. It was now during the COVID-19 pandemic, and hospital visitors weren’t allowed.

I counted myself as fortunate that I could still continue with receiving chemotherapy. What would have happened if I’d gotten seriously ill during the early pandemic? I shudder to think that things likely would not have been easy. The hospital staff helped to keep my spirits up and also with setting up a tablet for me to do video calls with my family and friends while I was in the hospital.

Though that round of chemotherapy put me into remission for a period of time, I later came up as MRD-positive and received a targeted chemotherapy as a third round of therapy followed by a stem cell transplant. I had some graft-versus-host disease issues but got through them. I feel fortunate that there are some different treatment options for AML and would like to participate in a clinical trial to help advance treatments if I need another option on my journey. I’ve kept in touch with other patients in my AML support group during my journey from diagnosis, treatments, and recovery. I know that I couldn’t have gotten through my physical and mental challenges without them.

Though AML sounded scary at first, the future of treatment looks bright to me with emerging research and treatment options. I hope that sharing my story will make a difference for other AML patients and especially those who may come up against barriers. 

No matter who you are, being proactive is a critical step in your AML journey. Stay [ACT]IVATED by being informed, empowered, and engaged in your care.

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What Are Some Clinical Myeloma Relapse Predictors?

What Are Some Clinical Myeloma Relapse Predictors? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Some multiple myeloma patients may relapse, but are there clinical predictors for relapse? Dr. Sikander Ailawadhi from the Mayo Clinic discusses mutations, clinical responses, and test results that may signal a higher likelihood of relapse.

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Transcript:

Lisa Hatfield:

Great, what are some of the clinical predictors for relapse in myeloma and when should patients speak up?

Dr. Sikander Ailawadhi:

Okay, so when we say clinical predictors of relapse, well, let me look at this from the standpoint of a patient’s been diagnosed, they’ve been treated, which patients are more likely to relapse is one way of looking at, and if we are looking for our following up a patient, what are we monitoring to look for relapse? So I’ll address mutates very quickly. So when we say what are the predictors of earlier relapse, the most important things that we know of are on any of the high-risk communications we’ve been talking about, the fact that it’s standard of care to look for any genetic mutations in the center diseased plasma.

So the myeloma cells, presence of any high-risk mutations, for example, there’s one called deletion 17p to certain chromosome mutations like 14;16 translocation, etcetera. Patients should be aware of what mutations their plasma cells have, having high-risk mutations, risk of early relapse or short duration of response.

Similarly, if a patient does not get a deep response to their prior treatment, they are more likely to come out of that response state sooner. One of the tests that has recently been used over the past few years, there’s something called the MRD test, minimal residual disease test, looking for one myeloma cell out of 100,000 or even one million bone bone marrow cells.

If somebody’s MRD-negative, they are more likely to have a longer duration of response. If they’re MRD-positive, meaning detectable disease on MRD test, comparatively shorter duration of response, etcetera. So these are predictors of earlier relapse, there are some other predictors like kidney dysfunction, and typically that happens if somebody has persistent kidney dysfunction because they don’t typically get access to all the drugs, typically relapse occurs sooner.

Now, when somebody is getting monitored for their disease, as I mentioned, we do labs every so frequently every month, every two months, every three months. That is what involves all the myeloma markers, serum lectrophoresis is to look for M spike, free light chains, look for light chain changes. You see what I mean? We know globules look for increases in immunoglobulins, and that’s what helps pick up the recurrence of the disease. 

What AML Treatment Options Are Available for MRD-Positive Patients?

What AML Treatment Options Are Available for MRD-Positive Patients? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

For acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients who are MRD-positive, what treatment options are available? Dr. Catherine Lai from Penn Medicine discusses MRD-positive concerns. Learn about recent guideline updates for MRD-positive and genetically adverse patients and key questions to ask your care provider. 

[ACT]IVATION TIP from Dr. Lai: For genetically adverse risk, it would be to have a conversation about whether or not you should be going to transplant. And for MRD-positive patients, I would say is to ask about how frequently my testing should be done to monitor for MRD, MRD-positive disease.

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Transcript: 

Art:

Okay, Dr. Lai, what treatment strategies are available for genetically adverse risk patients, as well as measurable residual disease or MRD-positive AML patients?

Dr. Catherine Lai:

Yeah, so I’ll take those two separately. So for the genetically adverse patients, and so just also as an update in 2020, in the summer of 2022, both the World Health Organization and the European Leukemia Network, they both updated their guidelines. So it’s called WHO 2022 and ELN 2022 in terms of how we help prognostic and risk-stratify our patients.

And so for the ELN 2022, there are a handful of additional mutations that do put patients at adverse risk, and so it would be good just to know to bring up with your physician, which in risk category am I in? 

And so in general, for the adverse risk patients, the long-term goal is bone marrow transplant once in complete remission. And so I would say that the initial treatment hasn’t really changed, but we are recommending more patients for transplant because there are a larger number of patients who are now in that adverse risk category.

For the MRD-positive patients, there are clinical trials that are targeted, are enrolling specifically for MRD-positive patients for the most part, once you’re in complete remission, if you’re MRD-positive, you just would continue on your current therapy. And for some patients who continue their current therapy that MRD, that MRD will eventually go away.

If they are done with therapy, it would be something that you would want to monitor very closely, and at the site at the time at which that that MRD is growing, you would want to consider re-initiating treatment, although that is not standard, so it’s a very tailored and individual discussion with your physician.

So, I say, in general, the activation tips for genetically adverse risk, it would be to have a conversation about whether or not you should be going to transplant. And for MRD-positive patients, I would say is to ask about how frequently my testing should be done to monitor for MRD, MRD-positive disease. 

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What Is MRD-Positive Acute Myeloid Leukemia?

What Is MRD-Positive Acute Myeloid Leukemia? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

What do acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients need to know about MRD-positive AML? Dr. Catherine Lai from Penn Medicine discusses minimal residual disease (MRD). Learn about the meaning of MRD, complete remission, and MRD testing methods.

[ACT]IVATION TIP from Dr. Lai: “Ask if MRD testing can be done on your bone marrow biopsy at the time at which you or after you’ve had your chemotherapy.” 

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Transcript: 

Art:

Dr. Lai, what is MRD-positive AML?

Dr. Catherine Lai:

So, that’s a really good question. And to answer that question, I’m going to actually answer a different question, which is, What is the definition of complete remission? So the definition of complete remission is when we do a bone marrow biopsy, and we have less than 5 percent of those blasts or leukemia cells in the bone marrow, and that is also in the setting of a relatively normal immune system or normal other blood counts have improved, so that your neutrophil count is above 1,000, and your platelet count is above 100,000. So, MRD, which stands for measurable residual disease, means that you’re in complete remission, so you have less than 5 percent blasts, but you’re more than zero.

And we, in general, when patients who are MRD-positive, we know that if you were to do nothing, that those patients have a high likelihood of relapse. We know for the patients who are going to transplant, if you’re MRD-positive before transplant, those patients also have a higher likelihood of relapsing after transplant. And so we tend to monitor it if possible…the tricky thing is, is that there is not a standard way to measure MRD testing as of yet, the common approaches are right now are with either flow cytometry or with PCR or next-generation sequencing, if you have a particular targeted mutation that we can follow.

So your activation from that standpoint is to ask if MRD testing can be done on your bone marrow biopsy at the time at which you or after you’ve had your chemotherapy. 

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