What Are the Outstanding Needs Today in Multiple Myeloma Care, Clinical Research?

Blood Cancers Today caught up with Krina Patel, MD, MSc, co-editor-in-chief for the BCT Editorial Board, about her recent clinical research work in multiple myeloma. Dr. Patel is based at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, where she is the section chief and research lead for multiple myeloma, as well as an associate professor in the Department of Lymphoma and Myeloma.

Dr. Patel was part of a team of multiple myeloma experts who together generated a narrative review based on their discussion of outstanding issues in myeloma research and care. Ajai Chari, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, led the review, which the authors published in Clinical Lymphoma, Myeloma, & Leukemia. In this interview segment, Dr. Patel elaborates on the core themes discussed by the experts.

According to Dr. Patel, a major clinical research question in need of more investigation in multiple myeloma is how to define transplant eligibility versus ineligibility in patients. Clinicians also need more clarification from treatment algorithms about when and how to use polytherapy or chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy.

The heterogeneity of multiple myelomas and the significant differences between high-risk and low-risk disease are aspects of clinical management that Dr. Patel especially emphasizes. “The big picture is multiple myeloma really is multiple,” she stressed in the interview, as well as that markedly different treatment approaches are called for in the different forms of high-risk disease versus in low-risk disease.

Closing the interview, Dr. Patel expressed optimism about the near future in multiple myeloma care. Functional cure is within reach using certain treatments, and cell therapies can provide meaningful quality of life improvement for patients with only a single intervention. She describes how maximizing quality of life benefits for patients is among the top priorities of treatment development in multiple myeloma.

“I think that’s really where the next set of trials and treatments are going toward: Minimizing the toxicity but really increasing the efficacy,” Dr. Patel concluded.