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Dr John Fox Outlines Management Challenges in Multiple Myeloma
John Fox, MD, MHA, vice president of Clinical Transformation at Spectrum Health, discusses management challenges still facing providers treating multiple myeloma.
John Fox, MD, MHA, vice president of Clinical Transformation at Spectrum Health, discusses management challenges still facing providers treating multiple myeloma.
Transcript
While the multiple myeloma treatment landscape has improved, what are the biggest management challenges providers treating the diseases still face?
In the las half a decade, there have been 5 or 6 drugs that have been approved for multiple myeloma and even more combinations of drugs, and in this day and era, we have more and more options available to patients, but we don’t understand how to best use those options. We need more information about the role of transplant is, especially in an era where we have very high MRD [minimal residual disease]- negativity.
We need more information about the duration of treatment, especially when you’re MRD negative, because these drugs could be used for the rest of one’s life, and if there’s no added value and there’s accumulated toxicity or increased risk of cardiopulmonary toxicity or increased risk of cancer, patients need to weigh those and physicians need to weigh those. In the absence of information, how long do you treat patients? We’re operating in the dark. So, I think those are some of the areas: what’s the role of transplant, what’s the role of multiple drug combinations, the relative benefits, and then how long do we need to treat people who have a very good response?
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