Courtney DiNardo, MD, on Looking Forward in AML Treatment

The treatment landscape for patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is evolving rapidly, according to Courtney DiNardo, MD.

While findings from a phase phase Ib/II trial, presented at the 2020 ASCO Virtual Scientific Program, designed to evaluate ivosenidib (Tibsovo) plus venetoclax (Venclexta) with or without azacytidine (Vidaza) in patients with IDH1-mutated AML showed promised, the senior study author explained how exciting the field is right now.

In an interview with CancerNetwork, DiNardo, an associate professor of leukemia at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discussed what is next in the treatment of AML.

Transcription:

It really is amazing. A couple of years ago, the treatment options for an older AML patient who wasn't a good candidate for intensive chemotherapy was really palliative at best. We would give them azacytidine alone…with a goal to improve quality of life and hopefully achieve transfusion independence for a time. But we really weren't providing significantly durable responses.

And so I think things have just changed so rapidly and it's just such an exciting time to be a leukemia researcher because there are so many new effective treatments. One of the joys of my job is trying to figure out how to take different effective therapies and put them together to make them even more effective for the benefit our patients.