Significance of Patient Enrollment in Lymphoma Clinical Trials, Particularly Among Older Patients

David Andorsky, MD, Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers, Boulder, Colorado, discusses patient eligibility and the importance of clinical trials for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) treatment.

“We don't want to expose patients to treatments that they have a higher chance of suffering harm from. But beyond that, almost anybody I think would be a good candidate for a trial,” Andorsky stated. “I'm a big proponent of especially looking at older patients who are often excluded from trials.”

Transcript:

Dr Andorsky: My name is Dr. David Andorsky. I'm with the Sarah Cannon Research Institute, and I practice medical oncology and hematology at the Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers in Boulder, Colorado.

Oncology Learning Network: In your clinical practice, how important is the discussion surrounding clinical trials and enrollment in these studies?

Dr Andorsky: Typically, when I'm seeing a patient who needs a new treatment, whether it's their first treatment, or second, third, fourth, or fifth, I always try to think if that patient might be eligible for a clinical trial. This is for 2 reasons.

One is that this is how we advance the science of medicine, all the new treatments that we have were approved and demonstrated to be effective [based on] data from trying these medications in actual patients. It's very important to advance the science. It's also a great opportunity for patients often to access a newer treatment that they may not be able to get because it's not yet FDA-approved, but that holds a lot of promise.

I really try to think about almost every patient that I see for a clinical trial. To be on a clinical trial, [patients] need to meet certain criteria, they need to be able to understand what's going on and consent to the study and understand that they can withdraw at any time. They need to have certain clinical features, their blood counts usually have to be at a certain threshold, they have to not have had other major comorbidities, and this is really for patients’ safety.

We don't want to expose patients to treatments that they have a higher chance of suffering harm from. But beyond that, almost anybody I think would be a good candidate for a trial. I'm a big proponent of especially looking at older patients who are often excluded from trials but those are patients that are more likely to have lymphoma or other malignancies compared to younger patients. So, we really need to understand how these treatments perform in those older patients as well.

I try to offer it to everybody that I see. Some patients are not interested, some patients would prefer to receive the standard-of-care, but many people are really excited about the opportunity to be in a study to get something new, something that may work well. And when you have a treatment that works better than what we've got, it's really gratifying for everybody.

It's obviously a win for the patient. And it also, again, provides us data showing that these treatments are effective.