How is the immune reconstitution in patients who stop therapy after achieving MRD negativity?

During the 64th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition, the Multiple Myeloma Hub was pleased to speak to Timothy Schmidt, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, US. We asked, How is the immune reconstitution in patients who stop therapy after achieving minimal residual disease (MRD) negativity?

In this interview, Schmidt discusses their poster presented at ASH 2022 entitled: Humoral immune reconstitution following therapy with daratumumab, carfilzomib, lenalidomide and dexamethasone (Dara-KRd), autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation (AHCT) and MRD-response-adapted treatment cessation. Schmidt discusses this post hoc analysis of the MASTER trial, examining the markers for humoral immune reconstitution amongst patients who were able to cease therapy, based on two successive MRD-negative assessments. Moving forward, Schmidt goes on to outline the results of humoral immune reconstitution based on whether patients ceased therapy following transplant or after transplant and Dara-KRd consolidation. Schmidt concludes by considering the potential of replicating this method of analysis in other studies.