VIDEO: Measurable residual disease assessment important in AML
In this video, Farhad Ravandi, MD, spoke with Healio about the importance of measurable residual disease assessment in AML, which was discussed at the Society of Hematologic Oncology Annual Meeting.
Ravandi, professor of medicine and chief of the section of acute myeloid leukemia in the department of leukemia at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, noted that measurable residual disease assessment in AML has been an area of research for almost 25 years, with initial studies showing that detection of residual leukemia cells using multiparameter flow cytometry could predict high likelihood of relapse and worse outcomes in AML.
“Of course, with the introduction of better assays and more sensitive assays, such as PCR, as well as, more recently, next-generation sequencing, our tools have become more varied,” Ravandi told Healio.
Ravandi also said that use of these more sensitive assays or a combination of assays could allow clinicians to “actually have increasingly certain assessment of disease status at the time of complete remission in AML.”
Additionally, there is potential to use measurable residual disease assessment, if highly reproducible, as a surrogate endpoint for survival and survival outcomes, which could help accelerate the FDA approval of new therapeutic agents in AML, according to Ravandi.
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Healio Interview