Dr. Martin on Patient Preferences With MCL Treatment

Peter Martin, MD, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at Weill Cornell Medical College, Weill Cornell Medicine/NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, discusses preferences patients have for treatment of their mantle cell lymphoma (MCL).

Intensive treatment regimens for patients with MCL, which are not often preferred, include high-dose cytarabine followed by autologous stem cell transplantation. This regimen does have high efficacy rates and induce remission durations for up to 10 years.

The challenge, however, is that this treatment requires patients to take off of work for approximately 6 months. Depending on their age, this is not an ideal or feasible situation, Martin explains. Patients would likely prefer to receive treatments that are broadly applicable and available in the community setting.