iwAL 2019 | MRD eradication in acute leukemias
In this video, Farhad Ravandi, MD, from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, talks about eradicating measurable residual disease (MRD) in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). This video was recorded at the International Workshop on Acute Leukemias (iwAL) 2019, held in Barcelona, Spain.
Transcript (edited for clarity)
Farhad Ravandi: Well, the other advance that has occurred is better identification of residual disease, after the initial therapy. Essentially, this is the population of leukemic cells that is not responsive to whatever you gave them at induction, and that’s typically cytotoxic chemotherapy. By characterizing this population better and identifying them better, we can actually now at least think about using agents to try to eradicate residual disease...
Farhad Ravandi: Well, the other advance that has occurred is better identification of residual disease, after the initial therapy. Essentially, this is the population of leukemic cells that is not responsive to whatever you gave them at induction, and that’s typically cytotoxic chemotherapy. By characterizing this population better and identifying them better, we can actually now at least think about using agents to try to eradicate residual disease.
Farhad Ravandi: My opinion, this hopefully will lead to further improvement in outcomes. There’s been studies that have shown even if a patient goes on to have an allergy, next time cell transplant in first remission, they do better if they’re MRD negative. Agents that can tackle MRD are likely to be beneficial, in my opinion. There’s a variety of agents that are in clinical development for potentially for use in this setting, including biospecfic antibodies, antibody drug conjugates, and small molecule targeted inhibitors, like the ones I mentioned earlier.
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