EHA 2025 | Clinical trials in smaller district general hospitals in the UK to benefit the local population

I work in a small district general hospital. It is not that small but it is still a district general hospital, as to say, in terms of the NHS. So in the UK we have got larger teaching hospitals and we have got the smaller district general hospitals. So we do everything in these district general hospitals in terms of clinical trials, in terms of drug safety, and now we have started doing the bispecifics as well. The only thing which we don’t do is a transplant and the CAR-T at the moment. So it is important that the clinical trial should be offered to the smaller hospitals as well so that the local population can be benefited. They don’t have to go all the time to the teaching hospitals, which could be quite far from their homes. So at the moment, we are having quite a few clinical trials in our hospital. I’ve been the clinical trial lead for the last nearly 10 years, and I have got 10 clinical trials under my belt as a PI. I’d like to actually specify about two more, two important clinical trials, which have really transformed patients’ lives. One is the FiTNESS trial on multiple myeloma, which is about the less able, transplant-ineligible patients with lenalidomide and ixazomib. So I like to actually point out about one patient, 91 years old, belonging to the Afro-Caribbean community, around our hospital, so quite a lot of the time, actually, patients are excluded thinking that they’re quite old or they might not actually be encouraged to participate in clinical trials because they might actually belong to a particular community, so it is very important that there should be full inclusiveness in the clinical trial, regardless of age, regardless of their ethnic background. So this 91-year-old man, who was diagnosed with multiple myeloma three years ago, is now in maintenance therapy of this clinical trial, FiTNESS, and this patient is now coming to the hospital independently without any aid, and he is leading a very independent life at the age of 91. He is in very good partial remission, and his life has been transformed by participating in the clinical trial. There’s another patient who suffered from a very dreadful disease like acute myeloid leukemia, and he was put on the clinical trial, which is the VICTOR trial, on patients who are NPM1 positive and FLT3 negative, and this patient’s life has completely transformed. He’s now two and a half years down the line in terms of his treatment. He’s doing fantastically well. He’s now thinking about going on a cruise and starting his life all over again from a personal perspective as well. So these are two glaring examples of clinical trials and encouraging patients and also peers to participate more in clinical trials and to become more clinical trial-centric in their fields. So these are very good examples, and I would encourage all the patients from wherever they are, from whatever age they are, to come forward and participate in clinical trials. We have seen a lot of new drugs which have come up in the last so many years, the CAR-T and the bispecifics. They are all the result of clinical trials. And unless we participate in clinical trials, unless we take participation in the research, we would not actually be able to come out with new diagnoses and be able to come closer and closer to the cure in hematological malignancies.

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