Stephanie Lee, MD

Stephanie Lee, MD, MPH, a hematologist and blood and marrow transplant physician-scientist and a professor and associate director of the Clinical Research Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, discusses the effectiveness of ruxolitinib (Jakafi) within various settings for patients with chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD).

According to Lee, systemic glucocorticoids are a key component of front-line therapy for patients with cGVHD, but 50% of patients become steroid-refractory or dependent. As a result, the study of ruxolitinib as a second-line treatment for patients cGVHD was looked into.

The primary endpoint of the study, which was overall response rate, showed positive results along with improvement in failure-free survival, and greater symptom improvement. The safety profile of ruxolitinib was well tolerated and consistent with previous reports.

| I think that once you show effectiveness in a big adult population, of course, you're going to be looking at other populations, and children are key populations. So that study and other studies are ongoing to look at it. I think, also remember that this is currently a study of second line therapy, so I think there'll be subsequent reports about different kinds of chronic GVHD, manifestations, and even later lines of therapy. Now that we've shown that it can be effective in this in this indication, I think there's a lot of enthusiasm for looking at in other different populations and contexts.

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Stephanie Lee, MD, MPH, discusses the effectiveness of ruxolitinib within various settings for patients with chronic graft-versus-host disease.

Stephanie Lee, MD | Authors

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Possibilities for Ruxolitinib in Various cGVHD Patient Populations