Medical Oncology
Physician insights on cancer treatment protocols, immunotherapy, targeted therapies, and clinical trial updates.
Recent Discussions
How should one manage a patient with leukocytosis and borderline detectable BCR-ABL without other clinical features of CML such as basophilia or splenomegaly?
Leukocytosis has many causes and I will assume within the context of this question that we can narrow the definition to neutrophilic leukocytosis, and that it has been persistent without evidence of an underlying infection, cancer, inflammatory disorder, significant obesity, exposure to a drug or to...
How do you manage severe thrombocytopenia due to splenomegaly and bone marrow involvement in CLL when starting obinituzumab and venetoclax?
This is a tough question without any information about the case. I am assuming the patient is untreated. For this setting, there are really three options supported by randomized phase 3 trials. Venetoclax + Obinuzumab has a single randomized phase 3 trial that showed improved progression free surviv...
What are non-clinical trial options to treat high-risk MDS in a transplant ineligible patient, after progression on hypomethylating agents?
This is often a difficult discussion to have with patients as there are currently no FDA approved second line treatment approaches for such patients, but this remains an active area for clinical investigation. Some approaches are nicely reviewed in Dr. Santini's 2019 How I Treat article in Blood.In ...
Do you ever consider treatment outside of the peripartum period in a patient with a history of obstetric APS?
I agree with Dr. @Dr. First Last that the patient should be treated with prophylactic low molecular weight heparin and low dose aspirin in any future pregnancies. Dr. Broder makes the very important point that modifiable cardiovascular risk factors should be particularly attended to in persons with ...
How would you manage an in-field small volume recurrence of early-stage favorable Hodgkin Lymphoma treated previously with 2 cycles of ABVD and 20Gy?
An established and extremely successful treatment paradigm for early-stage favorable HL is 2 cycles of ABVD followed by 20 Gy of RT. Assuming the patient is PET negative after chemotherapy, 5-year PFS is expected to be ~93-94% based on HD16. Most recurrences after combined modality therapy (CMT) in ...
How do you differentiate between JAK2 positive ET and PV when peripheral blood shows erythrocytosis and thrombocytosis?
The answer to this question is very simple. Before the discovery of erythropoietin and accurate assays for it, and before the discovery of JAK2 driver mutations, the diagnosis of polycythemia vera was clinically-based. The Polycythemia Vera Study Group (PVSG) did an extensive epidemiologic study and...
Do you give an etoposide-based regimen/more aggressive therapy for lymphoma-associated HLH, such as da-EPOCH-R over R-CHOP?
The general approach to treat the secondary lymphoma-associated HLH (LA-HLH) is to treat the underlying lymphoma- it works better in B cell lymphoma. Etoposide is probably the only agent consistently that has been shown (in several studies- mostly retrospective) to make a difference in the resolutio...
How do you approach the decision to pursue early versus delayed autologous stem cell transplantation in newly diagnosed multiple myeloma?
An excellent discussion.Why do I have a feeling this will continue to be debated for the next decade?!Reasons to consider early transplant: Age > 65. These patients were not included in the IFM-2009 study that tried to answer this. Patients who defer transplant in this age range may never get to a t...
What is your practice for work up and treatment of incidental splenic infarcts with or without splenomegaly in patients without sickle cell disease?
I obtain CBC/diff, CMP, and LDH in all patients. I assume a CT of the abdomen has already been done because that is what usually leads to the diagnosis of incidental infarcts. Of course, it is important to rule out intra-abdominal pathology which should be visible by CT. I obtain a thrombophilia scr...
For treatment of ITP, what would you add to dexamethasone to achieve the fastest recovery in a patient waiting for a procedure?
I usually use IVIG, particularly if the patient has responded in the past.