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BSH 2022 | Challenges in myeloma treatment in the UK

In this video, Karthik Ramasamy, MBBS, MRCP, FRCPath, PhD, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford, UK, discusses challenges in myeloma treatment in the UK, drawing focus on three main points. First, Dr Ramasamy explains that the biggest challenge in myeloma treatment is the lack of personalized care and flexibility despite having access to numerous anti-myeloma therapies. Dr Ramasamy then explains some other challenges, including reduced access to clinical trials due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and diagnostic challenges faced by clinicians. To conclude, Dr Ramasamy mentions the need to continue improving clinical trials for patients with high-risk disease in the UK. This interview took place at the 62nd Annual Scientific Meeting of the British Society for Haematology (BSH) 2022, in Manchester, UK.

Transcript (edited for clarity)

The challenges for myeloma treatment in the UK for our patients is the lack of personalization of their care – that I would probably single out as the single most challenging thing. We have access to a number of anti-myeloma therapies that have been approved by NICE and funded by NHS England, but there’s a lack of flexibility around what line that we can use these combinations, and that can sometimes be challenging for patients...

The challenges for myeloma treatment in the UK for our patients is the lack of personalization of their care – that I would probably single out as the single most challenging thing. We have access to a number of anti-myeloma therapies that have been approved by NICE and funded by NHS England, but there’s a lack of flexibility around what line that we can use these combinations, and that can sometimes be challenging for patients.

We also have a number of other challenges in managing myeloma patients. And one of that most recently has been access to clinical trials for patients because of the pandemic. There’s been a hold up in the ability of trusts to be able to open back up these trials for patients to enter. So I think that’s another challenge.

The third challenge is a diagnostic challenge. We do want the most detailed of information for our myeloma patients, and that is genomics. And that is not widely available for patients. And we now have a few trials which have started to show that patients with high-risk disease have better outcomes. So it’ll be good to know who are those patients who could benefit from these types of combinatorial therapies and exposure to other clinical trials. I think that will be useful to have. So that’s an area that I think in the UK we should try and improve on.

 

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