Future Directions and Unmet Needs in T-ALL

Bijal Shah, MD, MS, an associate member in the Department of Malignant Hematology at Moffitt Cancer Center, discusses the unmet medical needs in the T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) space and what future research aims to examine.

During a session at The NCCN 2022 Annual Congress of Hematologic Malignancies, experts, including Shah, explained initial strategies, various treatment options, and future directions for patients with ALL.

According to Shah, while a lot of progress has been made in the field of ALL over time, a lot of questions remain when treating patients with T-ALL.

Transcription:

0:08 | Using immunotherapies, particularly using T Cells to target cells, has been hard. I think we are trying to find better ways of using molecularly-directed therapy and in some cases, certain kinds of immunotherapies like daratumumab [Darzalex] to try to improve outcomes in a very difficult-to-treat disease.

0:34 | I think the key takeaway for T-ALL is that we are moving slowly to where we were 7 or 8 years ago in B-cell ALL. Now many people recognize that there is a big unmet medical need here. We are starting to see pharmacologists and the academician come together to begin to develop studies, this is a rare disease so often across several centers, to try and address this problem. Again, I am hopeful that the next time we meet, I am talking to you about some incredible advance that is going to shake up what we do in terms of that standard monolithic chemotherapeutic approach for T-ALL.