The EMPATHY Pilot Study

The evolution in the understanding of the biology of Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML), that eventually translated into highly effective molecular targeted therapies, is unparalleled in cancer medicine. This knowledge led the development of a number of orally active molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) that have dramatically improved clinical outcomes. In less than two decades, the 10-year survival probability increased from 20 to 53% with previous (IFN)-therapies to about 90% in the TKI era. Life expectancy of these patients now approaches that of the general population. While oral TKIs are now the standard of care for CML, it should be considered that therapy is lifelong and patients are requested to take medication on a daily basis. Importantly, there is convincing evidence that full adherence to therapy is a critical factor to obtain and maintain an optimal response to therapy. However, non-adherence is a major challenge in CML, since side effects induced by these drugs negatively impact on patient's quality of life (QoL), seriously undermine full adherence with treatment schedule and thereby often lead to sub-optimal clinical responses to drugs. From previous Preliminary Data we extrapolated the following evidences: Systematic monitoring of Patient-Reported Outcomes (PRO) in routine care has several advantages, such as improved symptom control, enhanced patient-physician communication, as well as patient satisfaction and wellbeing. Furthermore, it was found that Adverse Events (AEs) are the most frequent cause for non-adherence to CML therapy and that even experienced physicians tend to underestimate burden of TKIs of their patients. This mismatch might have major clinical implications in disease management, as physicians might not be able to early identify those patients who might be at heightened risk of poor adherence behavior. Given these findings, we hypothesized that systematic electronic monitoring of Patient-Reported AEs in CML routine practice may improve adherence to therapy, quality of life, and clinical response to therapy. This hypothesis will be addressed in the experiments of the following Specific Aims: 1) To develop an online platform for systematic monitoring of patient-reported AE assessment that is tailored to the unique demands of TKI therapy for CML. 2) To assess patient and physician acceptability and satisfaction with use of this platform in CML routine practice and evaluate its value in improving symptom management, quality of life, adherence to therapy as well as preliminary efficacy. We anticipate this study will provide unprecedented information on the value of systematically collecting patient-reported AEs information in CML routine care. If positive, our results will inform the development of large international randomized controlled trial (RCT) to investigate whether this experimental approach can improve depth and rates of clinical responses to TKI therapies in CML patients.

Dr. Fabio Efficace is also a Principal Investigator on this study. He is also a Professor in the Department of Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine.