Gayathri Ravi, MD

Gayathri Ravi, MD, assistant professor at University of Alabama, Birmingham, discusses the main objectives of the study she presented during a poster session at the 64th Annual American Society of Hematology Meeting (ASH). The presentation discussed the role of minimal residual disease (MRD) testing in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma.

According to Ravi, MRD is a strong prognostic factor and patients unable to achieve MRD negativity tend to have an early-risk of progression and relapse. However, most studies evaluate MRD in the clinical trial setting and there is not a lot of research measuring MRD in real practice.

As a result, investigators created this clinical academic-community pathway where they aimed to assess the optimal treatment and MRD-based monitoring of patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma. Patients enrolled in the study were also required to be eligible for autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT).

Investigators sought to evaluate the reproducibility of quadruplet induction/consolidation therapy, ASCT, and MRD-informed treatment in the real-world setting.

We presented my study as a poster [at ASH] to look at the real-world applicability of quadruplet induction, as well as MRD-based feasibility adaptive treatments to see it in the real-world setting.

Our main objective of the study looked at the reproducibility of the quadruplet induction in the real-world setting. We know the data from clinical trials like GRIFFIN [NCT02874742], but we do not know if that's reproducible in the real-world. That was 1 of the objectives, and the other 1 was MRD. It's becoming more and more relevant in today's practice of myeloma, so we tried to see how we could apply MRD-adapted treatment and management in real-world practice, as well as to see what the feasibility of that is, not just in an academic center, but also with involving our community partners.

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Gayathri Ravi, MD, discusses the role of minimal residual disease testing in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma.

Gayathri Ravi, MD | Authors

Articles

Evaluating MRD Testing in the Real-World Setting for Patients Multiple Myeloma