Mayo Clinic physicians treat patients with multiple myeloma using transformative immunotherapies with the goal of both prolonging survival for each patient and finding a cure for myeloma. Hear Mayo Clinic physicians S. Vincent Rajkumar, M.D., and Yi Lin, M.D., Ph.D., hematologists for the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center in Rochester, Minnesota, give an overview of CAR-T cell therapy and immunotherapy using specific antibodies in the treatment of multiple myeloma.
Mayo Clinic has been involved in the study and trial of both existing and emerging immunotherapies for multiple myeloma.
immunotherapy is the way of the future for multiple myeloma and immuno therapy for myeloma comes in different ways. We have cellular therapy where we use the patient's own T cells, we harvest the T cells, modify them and re inject them. And now these T cells are trained to fight the myeloma and many different parties products are being tested at mayo car T therapy or chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy has been so transformative really, you know in a very short time now people scientists, you know very smart colleagues have been doing research in this in decades but in terms of recognizing that having a car construct that has clinical activities and then translating it very quickly. A multi center studies and getting it to the FDA for approval and we anticipate to FDA approved party product to use in standard of care clinic Myeloma cells express a marker called B cell maturation antigen or B. C. M. A. And so that's what these carty's are targeting. There is a second B. L. A filed for Cartier and multiple myeloma with the F. D. A. And Mayo clinic participated in that registration study. And so we anticipate that would also be reviewed sometime later this year and potentially be this a second carty product in multiple myeloma. But we have fun found on the registration study and also now in real world practice experience is that we do not see a decreased response to carty in older patients compared to younger, which is great and we do not necessarily see a worse safety signal. I think that's because we look more at the overall health status or the fitness of the patients. Then we have immunotherapy with by specific where the antibody attaches to the plasma cell on the one side and also to your immune system t cells on the other side bringing the two together so that your own immune system can then fight you're my alone. And this by specific antibodies are being developed by a number of different drug companies and mayo is involved in many of these clinical trials. By specific antibodies. Maybe something that's more accessible to other oncology practices. You know, it's an off the shelf drug that can be infused. So what is a role for that when it's the right time to use that and sequence that with all the treatment options. So we get the biggest benefit for the patient to our group has contributed hugely to our understanding of multiple myeloma and monochrome gamma. These understanding the prevalence of myeloma and related disorders, the risk of progression of pre malignant plasma cell disorders. The new diagnostic criteria for each of these disorders, various treatments that are used currently for the treatment of myeloma and our role in developing them treatments are improving pretty much every year or two. So that whatever prognosis we tell patients today is already outdated because new treatments could change or improve the outcome even next year. Our hope is to prolong survival as much as we can while keeping our eyes focused on the ultimate vision, which is to cure my alone.
