“The availability of new effective and well-tolerated therapeutic options, to be used in the third line” for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) who no longer react to initial treatments, “assumes a fundamental importance in order to be able to respond to the challenges that remain in the management of patients” affected by this blood cancer with which almost 9 thousand Italians live. The appeal comes from the experts who spoke today in Milan at a meeting promoted by the Swiss Novartis to announce the reimbursement in our country of asciminib (Scemblix*), an active ingredient with an innovative mechanism of action, the progenitor of a new generation of drugs called Inhibitory stamps.
“The management of patients with CML has changed considerably in recent decades – says Fabrizio Pane, full professor at the Federico II University of Naples, director of the UOC Hematology and Bone marrow Transplants Aou Federico II of Naples – Thanks to tyrosine kinase inhibitors (Tki), capable of blocking the proliferation of leukemia cells and making the disease chronic, the average life expectancy of a patient with CML has in fact increased from about 5-7 years to that of the general population.However, some patients do not respond to treatment because develop resistance and/or intolerance. In addition, as lines of treatment increase, so do failure rates, including the risk of progression to advanced stages of the disease.” This motivates the need for “new effective and well-tolerated third-line therapeutic options”, and explains the reception given to asciminib by the Italian hematological community.
“Recently – underlines Massimo Breccia, associate professor of La Sapienza University of Rome, Hematology Policlinico Umberto I of Rome – the Gimema Foundation, the Italian group of adult hematological diseases, conducted a survey in about 70 Italian hematological centers to investigate the perception of hematologists on the use of asciminib”. It emerged that “89% would use the new drug as a third-line treatment in resistant patients and 98% consider it, precisely because of its tolerability, an option also for the elderly”.
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