Everybody responds to treatments differently. The drug, diet, or surgery that successfully helps one person, may have a neutral or even negative effect on another. This is why the medical field is moving more and more towards personalized treatments, which take into account that each patient is an individual with their own physiology.
Researchers are currently looking into how to use different drug combinations and sequences to treat multiple myeloma with more precision. Dr. Adam Waxman from University of Pennsylvania spoke about the cutting edge of multiple myeloma research during an interview with Cure.
Multiple myeloma is a rare form of cancer that occurs in plasma cells, a type of white blood cell that fights off germs. The cancerous cells build up in the bone marrow, taking away space from healthy cells. To learn more about multiple myeloma, click here.
There are currently five different treatment options for multiple myeloma, including various drugs, immunotherapy, and chemotherapy. It’s an exciting time for multiple myeloma research, full of new, emerging treatment avenues.
Right now, researchers are figuring out how to put these drugs together to make a more effective treatment. Waxman explained what they were working on in terms of relapse therapies. The scientists believe that second-generation proteasome inhibitors, including Kyprolis and Ninlaro, will play a key role in this strategy. They’re also looking into monoclonal antibodies, like Darzalex and Emplici, which they think could contribute to a four-drug regimen.
Their goal is to figure out how to decide which therapy an individual patient needs, and what the best time is to administer it. They searched through randomized data of patients who were in various stages of therapies after their first treatment. They’ve already found that patients who receive a three drug regimen have better survival outcomes than those who receive a two drug regimen. Right now, they’re trying to fine tune their understanding of why that happens, and understand which combinations pose a risk.
Reading each patient to figure out what treatment would work best for them is an art. The scientists consider various factors: How long did it take for a patient to respond to their last treatment? What therapy was the patient on when their cancer relapsed? Are they taking other drugs that could interact with their treatment? They also consider the convenience of each therapy, and try to opt for lower maintenance choices, over treatments that require multiple doctors trips a week, or 4-8 hours of an infusion.
