Targeted and Combination Therapies Reshape Leukemia Care

The treatment landscape for leukemia has advanced beyond traditional chemotherapy, said Dr. Firas El Chaer, chief of Leukemia and medical director of Infusion Services at Baptist Health Miami Cancer Institute.

El Chaer explained that while chemotherapy remains a foundation of care, recent years have brought targeted therapies designed to attack the genetic drivers of leukemia. Newer, lighter chemotherapy options are also available, offering patients better tolerance and quality of life during treatment.

Many of today’s approaches combine multiple therapies to hit different pathways, which can reduce resistance and accelerate treatment effectiveness, he noted.

Transcript

How has leukemia diagnosis and treatment evolved in recent years, and what advancements do you have your eye on for patients today?

The treatment of leukemia has evolved enormously in the past decade or so. Previous to that, there were very few drugs which we could use to treat leukemia, and they mostly relied on old school chemotherapy. We still definitely use those. They are part of the backbone of the treatment for leukemia; however, in the past few years, we started to discover many specific genes that are drivers of the leukemia, and subsequently we develop drugs that can target those genes specifically.

So the treatment landscape has evolved a lot in the past few years to include those drugs in addition to the old school chemotherapy. Not only that, we have now lighter chemotherapy that can be used to treat leukemia, that would offer the patient a better tolerance to chemotherapy and will allow them to enjoy some good quality of life while they're getting treatment.

A lot of the treatments these days are combination treatments, so you use multiple drugs to target multiple pathways and the cancer pathway, and that would help prevent any emergence of resistance, as well as faster treatment of leukemia.

Transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

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