Acute lymphoblastic leukemia, Rambaldi (UniMi): “800 diagnoses a year in Italy”

“Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a very aggressive blood tumor, which has a peak incidence in the pediatric population, where it represents the most frequent tumor. In Italy, around 800 new diagnoses are estimated per year, of which 450 in adults.” This was explained by Alessandro Rambaldi, professor of Hematology at the University of Milan, today, in the Lombardy capital, at the presentation event by Amgen of the results of the Phase III E1910 clinical study which demonstrate how the introduction of the bispecific monoclonal antibody blinatumomab in the first line of treatment, significantly increases the overall survival of patients affected by newly diagnosed Ph- B lymphocyte acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

“In the last thirty years, therapeutic success has seen extraordinary results in the pediatric population – underlines the expert – and this has been possible thanks to the intensification of chemotherapy treatments. In fact, children have greater resistance to these therapies than adults, which has allowed the intensity of the chemotherapy itself to be increased. In adults, however, for many years, the data have been more disappointing. Precisely for this reason, in recent decades, attention has focused on the search for therapeutic solutions against ALL more dedicated to the adult population”.

In these twenty years “we have witnessed two important advances – adds Rambaldi – The first concerns the development of techniques for evaluating minimal residual disease (MRD), made possible by molecular biology, which has allowed us to guide therapeutic choices. The second is the development of immunotherapy, in particular, the use of blinatumomab which, in patients who had a measurable amount of MRD, has proven capable of further reducing the amount of disease, bringing patients back into lasting remission. What the future holds for us – he concludes – is the commitment to apply the molecular evaluation techniques of minimal residual disease to all patients and to improve the results of treatments, without increasing toxicity”.