This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

VIDEO: ASCO education session focuses on novel therapies for young adults with leukemia

Add topic to email alerts

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

Subscribe

Added to email alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

Back to Healio

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.

Back to Healio

Understanding of an adherence to treatment regimens is critical for young adults with acute lymphoblastic leukemia according to Wendy Stock, MD, of the University of Chicago, and Elias J. Jabbour, MD, of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. These complicated, and sometimes long-term treatment strategies, may require additional provider and caregiver support to avoid patients becoming discouraged and stopping therapy.

In this video, Stock and Jabbour speak with HemOnc Today about a wide range of treatment options for young adults with ALL, as well as the rigorous regimens patients undergo.

Stock discusses patients with Philadelphia chromosome-like ALL – a subset which comprises approximately 30% of young adults with B-cell ALL.

Traditionally, Stock said, this patient population has poor results with standard chemotherapy. However, there are now tools to properly identify patients that have activation of specific kinase inhibitors.

“Our hope for the future to improve outcome[s] for these patients is to identify them upfront and potentially add kinase inhibitors – like imatinib (Gleevec, Novartis) [and] dasatinib (Sprycel, Bristol-Myers Squibb) or ruxolitinib (Jakafi, Incyte) – to frontline therapy to try and improve the outcomes of this high-risk group of patients,” she said.

In addition, Jabbour highlights the discussion of blinatumomab (Blincyto, Amgen) – a bispecific T-cell engaging antibody construct that transiently links CD3-positive T cells to CD19-positive B cells – as well as an immune therapy approach that involves the use of CAR T cells to “harness the patient’s own immune system to kill these cells.”

Stock and Jabbour also address the importance of adhering to regimens, as well as collaborating and participating in clinical trials.

“Often, it takes a big group of people to take care of these patients and that’s why we feel it’s so important to try and get them enrolled in clinical trials where people can share information about toxicities, and be treated at centers where there is great familiarity,” she said.