Michael J. Mauro, MD

Michael J. Mauro, MD, a hematologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the unmet needs of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and what potential therapies are being investigated currently for this patient population.

Mauro believes there is still work to be done in the CML patient population, such as patients who are highly resistant to treatment. Many patients will go through multiple lines of tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) therapy because of intolerance, resistance, or a mix of both. Right now, there are several therapies in development for these patients. Mauro believes the most notable is asciminib (ABL001), an investigational allosteric BCR-ABL inhibitor.

Patients with CML who progress to blast phase or patients who present with high-risk or advanced disease can be difficult to treat with TKIs only, according to Mauro, and so there needs to be a better cohesion between the conventional chemotherapy agents with the most effective TKIs to optimize treatment for patients with advanced-phase CML. The treatment algorithms still need to be rectified in this setting in regard to stem cell transplantation and long-term strategies so the community of physicians know how to best treat these patients, Mauro concludes.

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Michael J. Mauro, MD, discusses the unmet needs of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia and what potential therapies are being investigated currently for this patient population.

Unmet Needs Researchers are Investigating in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia

Michael J. Mauro, MD, a hematologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses how 4 FDA-approved frontline therapies are providing benefit to patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML).

The first agent approved in the frontline setting of CML was imatinib (Gleevec), a tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI). Mauro says this agent has been safe and effective in newly diagnosed patients with CML, but now physicians should balance the merits of the other 3 approved agents.

Over the last few years, 3 second-generation TKIs have been approved in this setting as well, including nilotinib (Tasigna), dasantinib (Sprycel), and ponatinib (Iclusig). Physicians must balance the merits of this new class of agents, which have been reported with relative benefit and low toxicities, Mauro notes. In order to decide the best treatment, physicians should look at each individual patient and their goals in terms of treatment to figure out how to best use these therapies and manage the unique adverse events of each agent.

Michael J. Mauro, MD, discusses how 4 FDA-approved frontline therapies are providing benefit to patients with chronic myeloid leukemia

Michael J. Mauro, MD | Authors

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Unmet Needs Researchers are Investigating in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia

Four Approved Frontline Treatments Benefit Patients with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia