VIDEO: Immunotherapy ‘main focus in the field’ of acute lymphoblastic leukemia
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Healio spoke with John Molina, MD, MEd, about research updates on the use of immunotherapy in leukemia from this year’s Society of Hematologic Oncology Annual Meeting.
Molina, who is an associate staff clinician in the leukemia and myeloid disorders division at Cleveland Clinic, explained that “a lot of the talks were kind of focused on immunotherapy, as it’s the main focus in the field right now, with many major abstracts coming out over the last several years.”
He noted that blinatumomab (Blincyto, Amgen) and inotuzumab ozogamicin (Besponsa, Pfizer) have both shown efficacy in relapse and refractory ALL and are now being considered outside these settings.
“And so, the question is whether this will be starting to move to the front line,” Molina said.
He added that the use of these therapies in the front-line setting adds to debates on the role of transplant in ALL, including which patients would still benefit from transplant.
“I think that population is getting smaller and smaller,” Molina said. “It still does exist — there are still patients with high-risk features that require transplant.”
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