ESH AL 2026 | MRD testing in ALL: advice for community physicians who may not have direct access to technologies
Wendy Stock, MD, University of Chicago Medical Center, Chicago, IL, briefly discusses the importance of measurable residual disease (MRD) testing in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and notes that it is prognostically relevant for guiding post-remission therapy. Dr Stock highlights that MRD testing can be accessed through external companies or laboratories, although this may not be feasible in under-resourced areas. This interview took place at the 5th How to Diagnose and Treat: Acute Leukemias meeting of the European School of Hematology (ESH AL) in Mandelieu-La Napoule, France.
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Transcript
I think it’s really important to try to get some form of MRD testing done because it’s so prognostically relevant and it helps us dictate the post-remission therapy. So I think in most places, even if your center doesn’t have the opportunity to do these techniques, you can contract for both flow and for these NGS techniques to send out the sample. And for the NGS techniques, we, for example, send out our sample...
I think it’s really important to try to get some form of MRD testing done because it’s so prognostically relevant and it helps us dictate the post-remission therapy. So I think in most places, even if your center doesn’t have the opportunity to do these techniques, you can contract for both flow and for these NGS techniques to send out the sample. And for the NGS techniques, we, for example, send out our sample. We have within our lab at our university hospital, we have outstanding flow, but if you don’t have that, there are companies where you can send the specimen and quickly get turnaround. So I would say that in terms of, at least in the United States, where access to these tests is not an issue, you can contract with these outside organizations, pharmaceutical, biotech companies to do these kind of assays. I think in under-resourced parts of the world, that’s a totally different question. And then you have to go based on the clinical outcomes. And all you can do with that is give your best approach in terms of sequential therapy for ALL. And I think you can see if patients are not having a rapid clinical response, then you have to worry and potentially change treatment and move towards an allogenic transplant. Of course, in under-resourced areas of the world, that’s also not always an option.
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