Tag: leukemia cancer

Dr. Richard Furman Joins Panel Discussion on CLL Prognostic Factors and the Impact on New Therapies

In this video from OncLive, CLL Program Director, Dr. Richard Furman joins a panel of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) experts to discuss the use of a new prognostic index for patients with CLL and its impact on new therapies.

A full transcript of Dr. Furman’s comments are below:

I can’t agree enough with Dr. Kipps in the importance of being able to use in clinical practice helpful measures for our patients. And no matter what new prognostic factors we develop, and of course, CLL doesn’t really need any more prognostic factors, it’s really going to be dependent upon those classic criteria from the original IWCLL or NCI working groups, based upon progression of disease, Rai stage, and all those factors that are just clinically apparent that are going to determine when you’re going to initiate therapy.

And fortunately, with these new agents, the novel agents, the prognostic markers really don’t become relevant in terms of response to treatment. Where I really think the majority of effort needs to be in this day and age is going to be identifying those patients who are unlikely to be basically maintained on a BCR antagonist long-term.

There are some patients with 17p deletion or some other genetic abnormalities that might have or are likely to have progression on a BCR antagonist. And those are the prognostic markers that we need to identify because they’re the ones that are going to tell us that ibrutinib by itself is not going to be long-term the best option for this patient.

And I think likewise looking at the gene family 4-39 or notch 1 mutations, things that predict for Richter’s Transformation, which is often a mode of escape from the BCR antagonists, really become increasingly important. Because those are the things that really may indicate to us that we have to change our treatment strategy. 

 

Dr. Richard Furman Discusses Recent Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Research Highlights

In this video from Patient Power, CLL Program Director, Dr. Richard Furman discusses recent results on chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) presented in abstracts during the 2015 meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) and the place of newly targeted therapies including ABT-199 and ACP-196 in treating patients with CLL.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hgxhLmTRj4

Dr. Furman has previously written about CLL abstracts from the 2015 ASH meeting here and here. More information about available CLL trials at Weill Cornell Medicine can be found on the Joint Clinical Trials website.

Effectiveness of Ibrutinib Treatment in Patients with Relapsed or Refractory CLL/SLL with del17p

Dr. Richard Furman
Dr. Richard Furman

CLL patients with a deletion of chromosome 17p on iFISH demonstrate an aggressive course with rapid disease progression and resistance to chemotherapy. The 17p status had been previously confirmed by iFish a test that examines individual cells for chromosomal changes that are significant in predicting disease outcome The missing portion  of chromosome 17 contains the gene for p53, which is one of the most important tumor suppressor genes. The Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor ibrutinib has demonstrated efficacy for patients with the del17p and been approved by the FDA.

In this trial, CLL patients with del17p received ibrutinib once daily until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.  63% of patients were Rai stage III or IV and 39% had received ≥3 prior therapies. At the median follow-up of 11.5 months, the overall response rate  for all patients was 83%, with a 12 month progression free survival and overall survival  of 79% and 84% respectively.

These results provide further evidence of ibrutinib’s efficacy in prolonging the survival of high risk patients. For more information about available trials for CLL/SLL at Weill Cornell Medicine please follow the link to our new clinical trials listing.