sAML PATIENT CONSIDERATIONS

Video Duration: 1:36

((Dr. Jonathan Abbas))

I’m Dr. Jonathan Abbas, the director of the acute leukemia and blood cancer program with Tennessee Oncology in Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve been treating patients with blood cancers, specifically acute leukemia, for over a decade, and my center does over a 100 inductions a year in patients with AML, many of them with therapy-related AML and AML-MRC.

Some considerations when deciding if a patient is an appropriate candidate for intensive therapy:

Patients who are healthy and able to tolerate intensive chemotherapy without experiencing significant toxicity
Patients with disease characteristics that increase the likelihood of benefiting from intensive therapy
Elderly patients with multiple comorbidities, impaired renal or hepatic function, and less than optimum performance status should be considered for less intensive therapy or best supportive care

To summarize, intensive chemotherapy is not the right choice for every patient with t-AML or AML-MRC, but it is imperative that we identify these patients to give them the best chance of a remission and hopefully a cure.

Thank you, and I hope that I have been able to address the challenges related to sAML and raise awareness about the clinical considerations that can help offer patients the best outcomes possible. I’m confident that as we increase our knowledge on how to manage sAML, we will be able to further optimize care for these patients in the community practice setting.