Deciding the Next Steps for Treating Patients With Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Courtney D. DiNardo, MD, MSCE, a clinical researcher at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses what is on the horizon for the acute myeloid leukemia (AML) setting.

DiNardo thinks that incorporating enasidenib (Idhifa) plus azacitidine (Vidaza) into the standard of care for older patients with AML and IDH2 mutations is the next step for this patient population. On a broader scale, ensuring that mutational profiling for any patients with AML is coming back within a reasonable amount of time, which is about a week for DiNardo, so physicians can use a targeted inhibitor as frontline treatment for these patients.

Identifying whether or not there is a role for venetoclax (Venclexta) in combination with enasidenib and azacitidine in newly diagnosed patients with AML is also pertinent at the moment since both those drugs have shown to be effective with venetoclax separately in that setting, according to DiNardo. Figuring out if all 3 drugs, which are changing the standard of care for AML, will work better together without increasing toxicity for patients is an important question in this space.

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