Every year, in Italy, 5,800 people are affected by multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that originates in the bone marrow, but the various innovative therapies recently developed have significantly prolonged patient survival, in many cases becoming chronic the disease.
The perspectives offered are explored today in a virtual media tutorial, promoted by Celgene now part of Bristol Myers Squibb.
In twenty years, the experts explained, the median survival has gone from about 36 months to 7 years.
Immunomodulators have radically changed the prospects for treatment and, used in combination with drugs such as proteasome inhibitors and monoclonal antibodies, represent the real "backbone" of treatment, from the first line to the following ones.
And CAR T, which constitute the most advanced front of immunotherapy, are showing important results in heavily pretreated patients, with about 80% alive at one year compared to a life expectancy that did not exceed 9 months.
"Multiple myeloma is a typical disease of the elderly, the average age at diagnosis being approximately 70 years - says Michele Cavo, Director of the Institute of Hematology 'LA
Seràgnoli ', IRCCS S. Orsola-Malpighi, University of Bologna and Full Professor of Hematology at the same University -.
In about one third of cases the disease can begin without symptoms, while in the remaining two thirds bone pains associated with skeletal disease are the most common symptoms.
The therapeutic innovation in the last 20 years has been represented by the introduction of drugs with direct action towards plasma cells and the 'medullary microenvironment', first of all immunomodulators.
The therapeutic options available in the various stages of the disease have expanded considerably, and this has translated into a significant improvement in patients' life expectancy ".
Multiple myeloma, from the FDA green light to the first Car-T
Cavo treatment, for patients who have not responded to previous therapies
The Food and Drug Administration, the drug regulatory authority of the United States of America, has approved the first Car-T therapy for patients with multiple myeloma.
The news is given by Michele Cavo, director of the 'Seràgnoli' Institute of Hematology, of the Irccs Sant'Orsola-Malpighi, during a webinar held on multiple myeloma.
Car-t therapy (Idecabtagene vicleucel) will be used for those who have not had effects from previous treatments.
It is a personalized treatment that uses a type of white blood cell of the patient, the T lymphocytes, which are 'engineered' and which help fight myeloma: in fact, they are collected and modified to include a new gene that facilitates the killing of the tumor cells.
"It is the first product with Car-T cells approved by the US regulatory agency for multiple myeloma as a therapy for triple refractory patients who have not had effects from the three main classes of drugs", explains Cavo, who specifies how to arrive in Europe it is necessary "the subsequent approval of Ema and then the reimbursement of the National Health Service by Aifa".
Cavo points out that a "second product" based on Cart-T is also on the way, again for patients with multiple myeloma.
