Multiple Myeloma Awareness Month: When the Doctor Becomes the Caregiver

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Tackling Barriers to MRD Adoption in the Community Setting

Susan Bobulsky

Susan Bobulsky, SVP, Diagnostics, clonoSEQ


The day a person receives a cancer diagnosis is likely one of the worst days of their lives. For some new patients, the typical approach may be to seek care from a specialist at an NCCN-designated cancer center. But for the majority of Americans, it will be a community oncologist who guides them through their cancer journey.
That’s why Adaptive recently partnered as a sponsor with trusted community oncology organizations Association of Community Cancer Center (ACCC) and NCODA to share vital minimal (or measurable) residual disease (MRD) education with community doctors who treat hematologic oncology. We hope to level the playing field between community and academia, ultimately elevating the patient experience, no matter where they receive their care.


ACCC just launched updates to the MRD Testing Implementation Roadmap, which aims to help multidisciplinary providers successfully integrate MRD testing into the cancer care continuum for patients with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) and multiple myeloma, complementing the Roadmap for patients with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) which launched earlier this year.


For community practitioners interested in learning more now, check out the first of several MRD podcasts on ACCC’s CANCER BUZZ, The Promise of MRD Testing in Multiple Myeloma and CLL, featuring Drs. Rafael Fonseca and Tara Graff.  One of my favorite soundbites from Dr. Fonseca explains why the adoption of MRD is so pertinent now: “Truly, the refinements that have occurred over the last 5 or 10 years have brought it to the forefront and also in a very timely way because now we have the treatments that are able to reach those very deep responses where the question [of how much residual cancer is left] matters.”


Additionally, we’re proud to share that NCODA published a Positive Quality Intervention (PQI), titled, “clonoSEQ Next Generation Sequencing for Minimum Residual Disease Testing in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia.” This PQI offers community CLL providers important insights on the time points during which to consider MRD, as well as potential patient pathways, illustrating a fixed duration therapy option and a chemoimmunotherapy (CIT) regimen.


Putting patients first is a philosophy that everyone can get behind. At Adaptive, we’re committed to ensuring every patient who may benefit from MRD assessment at a sensitivity of 10-6 has a care team who is familiar with and able to take advantage of the insights that clonoSEQ® provides.


*NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®) for Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia/Small Lymphocytic Lymphoma V.2.2022. NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®) for Multiple Myeloma V.5.2022. NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®) for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia V.1.2022. NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®) for Pediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia V.1.2022 © National Comprehensive Cancer Network, Inc, 2022. All rights reserved. Accessed May 20, 2022. To view the most recent and complete version of the guideline, go to NCCN.org. NCCN makes no warranties of any kind whatsoever regarding their content, use of application and disclaims any responsibility for their application or use in any way.


clonoSEQ® is available as an FDA-cleared in vitro diagnostic (IVD) test service provided by Adaptive Biotechnologies to detect minimal residual disease (MRD) in bone marrow from patients with multiple myeloma or B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) and blood or bone marrow from patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). clonoSEQ is also available for use in other lymphoid cancers and specimen types as a CLIA-validated laboratory developed test (LDT). For important information about the FDA-cleared uses of clonoSEQ including test limitations, please visit clonoSEQ.com/technical-summary

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