Good afternoon, everybody. It's Dr. Sunil Gupta speaking from Milan, attending the 30th EHA European Hematology Association Conference in this beautiful city. And I belong to United Kingdom. I work in one of the Southland Hospital, which is a large decision hospital. But at the same time, we have got a massive contribution from teaching hospitals in that area. I'm a clinical lead in hematology in Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust in South London. I'm also the lead for research in that trust. I've been leading research for the last nearly 10 years in various parts of United Kingdom. So at the moment, I'm participating in two very important national clinical trials. One is the fitness trial for the less able, transparent, ineligible multiple myeloma patients. It is upfront lenalidomide plus excessomib and then maintenance on excessomib or placebo. I've got a very glaring and a glowing example of a 91 years old Afro-Caribbean gentleman who was quite unwell to start with on multiple myeloma and now he's nearly three years after starting his clinical trial on fitness and he's doing exceedingly well. He's in very good partial admission. He has got no complications from the trial and he's doing very, very well. He's largely independent. He comes to the clinic without any aid, without any assistance and continues his chemotherapy. He's in maintenance at the moment. I have another good example of importance of clinical trial where we have got a Victor trial which is the acute myeloid leukemia trial on a good risk patient on venetoclax and citarabin. This is a 65 years old gentleman who was quite involved with acute myeloid leukemia and you can imagine AML is a very dreadful disease. He was put on trial with a lot of hesitation. He actually went on trial. He is now three years down the lane after starting his clinical trial on this to do chemotherapies and his life is completely transformed. He's now thinking about going on cruise and starting his life all over again in this personal domain as well. This actually emphasises the importance of clinical trials and neutral development in the sphere of hematology oncology. It also shows the diversity and inclusivity in patients that none of the patients should be actually excluded just because they belong to a different community or if they are very elderly. Clinical trial is for everyone and all the patients and also the peers should be encouraged to participate in clinical trials and to become more research active in their hospitals.
HealthTree • January 2, 2026