Improving CAR-T Access

Dr. Chino talks with Dr. Navneet Majhail and patient advocate Laurie Adami about CAR-T therapy, an advance cancer treatment that biologically engineers a patient's own T-cells to recognize and kill cancer cells. This discussion will be based off the JCO OP article, "Outpatient Administration of Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-Cell Therapy Using Remote Patient Monitoring," on which Dr. Majhail served as lead author.

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Fumiko Chino: Hello, and welcome to Put into Practice, the podcast for the JCO Oncology Practice. I'm Dr. Fumiko Chino, an associate professor in radiation oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center with a research focus on access, affordability, and equity.

CAR T-therapy is an advanced cancer treatment that biologically engineers a patient's own T cells to recognize and kill cancer cells. It has shown remarkable benefits, leading to long-term remission or even cure for select patients with hematological cancers that have not responded to other treatments. Primary trials were exclusively conducted in the inpatient setting due to high risk of quick onset and life-threatening toxicities requiring close monitoring and immediate treatment. Advances in symptom monitoring and care delivery have allowed the introduction of outpatient CAR T, which is cost saving and more patient centered. I'm happy to welcome two guests today to discuss this promising operational shift.

Dr. Navneet Majhail, MD, MS, serves as the Physician-in-Chief of Blood Cancers at the Sarah Cannon Cancer Network, where he oversees 10 transplant and cellular therapy programs that collectively perform over 1500 transplants and cellular therapies each year. He is the first author of the JCO OP manuscript, "Outpatient Administration of Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-Cell Therapy Using Remote Patient Monitoring," which was published earlier this year.

Ms. Laurie Adami was President of the LA-based Interactive Data's Fixed Income Analytics Division when she was diagnosed with stage four follicular lymphoma at age 46. From 2006 to 2018, she was in continuous treatment and received multiple lines of therapy, including three clinical trials. In 2018, she received treatment number seven, a clinical trial of Kite CAR T-therapy. Thirty days later, she was in complete remission, where she remains today. She is an active patient advocate and legislative policy advocate for several not-for-profits.

Our full disclosures are available in the transcript of this episode, and we have already agreed to go by our fir