Zahra Mahmoudjafari, PharmD, MBA, BCOP, FHOPA

Panelists discuss how utilization management limits clinical autonomy and advocate for reforms that preserve shared, patient-centered decision-making.

Panelists discuss how payers should interpret black box warnings with clinical context to prevent unnecessary restrictions on safe, evidence-based treatments.

Panelists discuss how integrating real-world evidence into coverage frameworks can enhance decision-making and align payer policies with actual patient outcomes.

Panelists discuss how outdated coverage decisions can worsen outcomes and increase costs by delaying access to safer, evidence-supported BTK inhibitor therapies.

Panelists discuss how payer coverage restrictions often conflict with NCCN guidelines for BTK inhibitor therapies in CLL, impeding evidence-based care.

Panelists discuss how outdated coverage models lag behind oncology innovation, calling for dynamic policies that reflect evolving clinical evidence.

Panelists discuss how step edits hinder timely cancer treatment and urge policies that prioritize evidence-based access over cost-driven sequencing.

Panelists discuss how utilization management policies can delay oncology care and call for reforms that better align oversight with clinical evidence.

Panelists discuss how PBMs shape oncology access and stress the need for transparency to align financial control with clinical priorities.

Panelists discuss how managing oral therapy toxicities requires preemptive planning, multidisciplinary team involvement, patient and family education, and close monitoring for drug interactions and adherence issues, emphasizing the need for experienced centers with proper support infrastructure.

Panelists discuss how implementing oral regimens faces significant operational barriers including formulary restrictions, prior authorization requirements, insurance coverage differences between inpatient and outpatient settings, and the need for careful monitoring protocols, especially during initial treatment cycles.

Panelists discuss how aligning evolving payer policies with real-world oncology practice is key to sustaining timely and equitable patient access.

Panelists discuss how national policy reforms are reshaping oncology care by balancing affordability efforts with the need to preserve access and innovation.

Panelists discuss how oral azacitidine plus venetoclax represents a transformative advance toward completely oral regimens that could dramatically improve quality of life and accessibility, though challenges remain regarding cost, insurance coverage, and the complexity of managing multiple oral agents.

Panelists discuss how emerging therapies like menin inhibitors show promise based on strong preclinical data and clinical responses, while CD47 inhibitors have faced setbacks in phase 3 trials, with the greatest potential for novel agents likely in frontline combination settings.

Panelists discuss how venetoclax management requires standardized approaches to duration, bone marrow biopsy timing, growth factor use, and azole antifungal selection, with practices varying significantly between centers and the need for consistent protocols to optimize patient outcomes.

Panelists discuss how IDH inhibitors, particularly ivosidenib combined with azacitidine, represent potentially the greatest advance in AML treatment due to significant overall survival improvements, though adoption challenges include waiting for mutation results and limited patient applicability.

Panelists discuss how the treatment landscape has evolved from limited options to include hypomethylating agents and venetoclax combinations, with emerging oral formulations promising greater accessibility while requiring careful consideration of patient selection and toxicity management.

Panelists discuss how combination trials like VIALE-A and VIALE-C have demonstrated venetoclax’s survival benefits when added to hypomethylating agents, opening doors for numerous combination studies while emphasizing the need for randomized trials to prove clinical benefit in different disease contexts.

Panelists discuss how venetoclax has revolutionized AML treatment by providing effective therapy options for older patients with previously untreatable disease, enabling higher response rates, longer survival, and increased transplant eligibility while transforming the treatment landscape across all age groups.

Panelists discuss how transplant eligibility has expanded beyond traditional intensive chemotherapy candidates to include patients receiving lower intensity regimens, with earlier transplant consultations and consideration of organ function preservation through less toxic induction approaches.

Panelists discuss how current NCCN guidelines emphasize the importance of treating AML at experienced centers with proper infrastructure, while treatment decisions are based on intensive vs nonintensive therapy eligibility and specific genetic mutations like FLT3, IDH1, and TP53.

Panelists discuss how social determinants of health significantly impact AML care, particularly regarding transportation access, health literacy, and the intensive nature of treatment requiring frequent clinic visits for blood work and transfusions, which disproportionately affects patients living far from treatment centers.

Panelists discuss how the greatest unmet needs include addressing poor outcomes in specific subsets like TP53-mutant disease, managing the increasingly older population with secondary mutations, and ensuring global access to targeted therapies and next-generation sequencing.

Panelists discuss how fitness assessment has evolved beyond traditional age cutoffs to incorporate comprehensive geriatric assessments, frailty measures, and individualized evaluations, while questioning whether intensive therapy should automatically be given to fit patients given newer effective treatment options.

Panelists discuss how current risk stratification systems, particularly the European Leukemia Net 2022 classification for intensive therapy and the 2024 classification for lower intensity treatments, categorize patients based on complex cytogenetics and molecular features to guide prognosis and treatment selection.

Panelists discuss how the pathophysiology of acute myeloid leukemia has evolved from a single phenotype understanding to recognizing diverse genetic events that lead to transformation at the hematopoietic stem cell level, with treatment decisions now increasingly integrated with specific genetic mutations despite the disease’s rapid progression timeline.

Panelists discuss how upcoming ASCO presentations will focus on long-term CAR T-cell therapy outcomes showing potential cure plateaus, minimal residual disease (MRD)–guided treatment escalation/de-escalation strategies, tri-specific antibodies, and the economic value of using MRD negativity to guide maintenance therapy discontinuation decisions.

Panelists discuss how recent updates from the phase 3 IsKia trial demonstrate that isatuximab combined with carfilzomib, lenalidomide, and dexamethasone improves minimal residual disease negativity rates by approximately 10% at both the 10–5 and 10–6 levels, particularly benefiting high-risk patients.

Panelists discuss how the PERSEUS trial’s subgroup analysis reinforced that sustained minimal residual disease negativity predicts better long-term outcomes and demonstrated the potential for treatment de-escalation at the 2-year mark, while other trials like Advance showed dramatic increases in MRD negativity rates with quadruplet therapy.