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Video

How do immunotherapies play a role in frail patients?

Posted by
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• September 13, 2021

Description

Learn about immunotherapies' role in frail patients in this HealthTree University lesson by a cancer specialist.

On this video

Healthtree contact Shakira Grant, MBBS, Specialist

Shakira Grant, MBBS, Specialist

Chapel Hill Comprehensive Cancer Center

Transcript

How do immunotherapies play a role in frail patients? So in terms of immunotherapies and some of the newer agents in the older adult population, one of the things that I will say is the introduction of one of the newer drugs called daratumumab, which is considered an immunotherapy, targeting something called CD38, that is pretty well tolerated in the older adult population. And in fact, that regimen is used quite often now for patients who are considered not to be eligible for transplantation. And this was really based on what is known as the MYA trial. And so immunotherapy, at least from a daratumumab point of view, we do have data that shows that that drug is pretty well tolerated and really age alone or even frilty status would not be an exclusion criteria for patients because it can be given relatively safely. In terms of the newer drugs, when you think about bispecific antibodies and even CAR T cell therapy, we have some small series that came out thinking about CAR T cell in the population over the age of 65, not in myeloma specifically, but also in other hematological malignancies, and it appeared to be fairly well tolerated. I think that data is still quite not at the stage where I would advocate that older adults, especially those who are frail, can necessarily tolerate CAR T cell or bispecific antibodies. But I think we need more data. But for now, I know that the data is pretty strong when it comes to thinking about daratumumab use. And in fact, I use that quite often in many of my frail older adult patients with myeloma.

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