Publications by authors named "Jan GeiSSler"

Background: Up to 65% of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) who are treated with imatinib do not achieve sustained deep molecular response, which is required to attempt treatment-free remission. Asciminib is the only approved BCR::ABL1 inhibitor that Specifically Targets the ABL Myristoyl Pocket. This unique mechanism of action allows asciminib to be combined with adenosine triphosphate-competitive tyrosine kinase inhibitors to prevent resistance and enhance efficacy.

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Patient involvement is crucial in healthcare, a factor increasingly recognised by life sciences companies and research institutes. This article presents a case study on Servier, a life sciences company that founded a patient expert board, ahead of launching a new research and development (R&D) institute. The aim was to foster a patient-centric culture within the company.

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Background: Genomic and molecular alterations are increasingly important in cancer diagnosis, and scientific advances are opening new treatment avenues. Precision oncology (PO) uses a patient's genomic profile to determine optimal treatment, promising fewer side effects and higher success rates. Within PO, tumor-agnostic (TA) therapies target genomic alterations irrespective of tumor location.

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Background: Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) have significantly lowered mortality of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patients adjusting life expectancy to that of the standard population. However, CML and its treatment with TKIs causes a high disease burden. Physical exercise (PE) could be a non-pharmacological approach to reducing these and improving quality of life.

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In the European Union, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) plays a central role in the complex health research legal framework. It aims to protect the fundamental right to the protection of individuals' personal data, while allowing the free movement of such data. However, it has been criticized for challenging the conduct of research.

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Digital health solutions have the potential to complement traditional healthcare approaches and deliver improved health outcomes, but there are system-wide challenges that need to be addressed. These include fragmentation of the digital health landscape, regulatory processes that lack the agility to accommodate the fast pace of digital health advances, and inadequate transparency around data sharing and data governance. All of these challenges have led to mistrust, limited understanding and sharing of best practices, a lack of digital education and awareness, and insufficient patient and public engagement and involvement.

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Precision oncology has made remarkable strides in improving clinical outcomes, offering hope to patients with historically difficult-to-treat, as well as rare or neglected cancers. However, despite rapid advancement, precision oncology has reached a critical juncture, where patient access to these life-saving medicines may be hampered by strict requirements by Health Technology Assessment (HTA) bodies for randomised controlled trials (RCTs) for assessing new medicines against appropriate comparator. The very nature of precision oncology-matching a tumour's unique molecular alterations to targeted therapies predicted to elicit response-can make the use of RCTs very difficult, as only a very small number of patients might qualify for a given therapy within a traditional clinical trial setting.

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Introduction: Multidisciplinary and multi-professional collaboration is vital in providing better outcomes for patients The aim of the INTERACT-EUROPE Project (Wide Ranging Cooperation and Cutting Edge Innovation As A Response To Cancer Training Needs) was to develop an inter-specialty curriculum. A pilot project will enable a pioneer cohort to acquire a sample of the competencies needed.

Methods: A scoping review, qualitative and quantitative surveys were undertaken.

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The increased use of telehealth in cancer care during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has added to our knowledge and experience of the modality with benefits in terms of efficacy, cost, and patient and healthcare professional experience reported. However, telehealth has also been found not to be universally available to all patients with cancer, nor to be appropriate for every healthcare interaction; additionally, not all patients prefer it. Now that coronavirus disease restrictions have essentially ended and an opportunity to re-assess telehealth provision in cancer care presents, we offer a framework that aims to ensure that the needs and preferences of the patient community are included in the development of telehealth provision.

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Background: The role of patients in cancer research is undergoing a significant evolution as all stakeholders seek to enhance the level of direct patient involvement in the design and development of clinical trials. However, there are significant hurdles that patients, patient advocates, laboratory researchers, clinical investigators, and funding institutions must overcome to implement relevant patient involvement in all aspects of biomedical research. By using innovative grant funding models, philanthropic organizations can lead the field in overcoming these challenges.

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Article Synopsis
  • The Acute Leukemia Advocates Network (ALAN) conducted a global survey to identify factors leading to poor quality of life (QoL) in acute leukemia patients and determine their unmet needs.
  • The survey, which involved 552 participants from 42 countries, revealed that younger age, female gender, and lower income are significantly linked to lower QoL levels, while social isolation and reduced physical activity were major contributing factors.
  • The study highlights the need for healthcare providers to consider age, gender, and socioeconomic status when creating support strategies for acute leukemia patients, emphasizing the importance of social functioning in improving QoL.
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Background: Physical activity (PA) is a non-pharmacological approach to alleviate symptom burden and improve health-related quality of life (HrQoL) in cancer patients (pts). Whether pts with myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) PA behavior changes due to symptom burden and/or knowledge of the putative beneficial effects of PA has not yet been investigated.

Methods: We performed a large questionnaire study in MPN pts.

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The currently valid Regulation (EU) 536/2014 on clinical trials with medicinal products for human use brings some innovations that are of great importance for patients who participate in clinical trials and patients with a need for innovative therapies. These concern patient protection, especially for vulnerable patient groups, as well as the conditions for further use of data obtained in clinical trials. The introduction of the largely publicly available information system CTIS (Clinical Trials Information System) will significantly improve the transparency of ongoing clinical trials.

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Cancer research is a crucial pillar for countries to deliver more affordable, higher quality, and more equitable cancer care. Patients treated in research-active hospitals have better outcomes than patients who are not treated in these settings. However, cancer in Europe is at a crossroads.

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Precision oncology, where patients are given therapies based on their genomic profile and disease trajectory, is rapidly evolving to become a pivotal part of cancer management, supported by regulatory approvals of biomarker-matched targeted therapies and cancer immunotherapies. However, next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based technologies have revealed an increasing number of molecular-based cancer subtypes with rare patient populations, leading to difficulties in executing/recruiting for traditional clinical trials. Therefore, approval of novel therapeutics based on traditional interventional studies may be difficult and time consuming, with delayed access to innovative therapies.

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Clinical trials are required to ensure new treatments are safe and effective for patients. The involvement of participants in the planning and execution of clinical trials is critical not only to their success but also so that the participating communities can benefit from them.

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Objectives: The Innovative Medicines Initiative-funded, multistakeholders project Healthcare Alliance for Resourceful Medicine Offensive Against Neoplasms in Hematology (HARMONY) created a task force involving patient organizations, medical associations, pharmaceutical companies, and health technology assessment/regulator agencies' representatives to evaluate the suitability of previously established value frameworks (VFs) for assessing the clinical and societal impact of new interventions for hematologic malignancies (HMs).

Methods: Since the HARMONY stakeholders identified the inclusion of patients' points of view on evaluating VFs as a priority, surveys were conducted with the patient organizations active in HMs and part of the HARMONY network, together with key opinion leaders, pharmaceutical companies, and regulators, to establish which outcomes were important for each HM. Next, to evaluate VFs against the sources of information taken into account (randomized clinical trials, registries, real-world data), structured questionnaires were created and filled by HARMONY health professionals to specify preferred data sources per malignancy.

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There are considerable disparities between the quality of cancer care and clinical outcomes for cancer patients in different European countries, regions, hospitals and communities. These have persisted despite the introduction of many European and National Cancer Plans, an extensive portfolio of clinical guidelines and the existence of evidence based guidelines for the good practice in planning cancer healthcare systems. We describe the European Code of Cancer Practice which is a citizen and patient-centred accessible widely disseminated statement of the core requirements for good clinical cancer practice.

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Remarkable improvements in outcomes for many haematological malignancies have been driven primarily by a proliferation of novel therapeutics over the past two decades. Targeted agents, immune and cellular therapies, and combination regimens have adverse event profiles distinct from conventional finite cytotoxic chemotherapies. In 2018, a Commission comprising patient advocates, clinicians, clinical investigators, regulators, biostatisticians, and pharmacists representing a broad range of academic and clinical cancer expertise examined issues of adverse event evaluation in the context of both newer and existing therapies for haematological cancers.

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With the increasing use of genomic profiling for diagnosis and therapy guidance in many tumor types, precision oncology is rapidly reshaping cancer care. However, the current trajectory of drug development in oncology results in a paradox: if patients cannot access advanced diagnostics, we may be developing drugs that will reach few patients. In this Perspective, we outline the major challenges to the implementation of precision oncology and discuss critical steps toward resolving these, including facilitation of equal access to genomics tests, ensuring that clinical studies provide robust evidence for new drugs and technologies, enabling physicians to interpret genomics data, and empowering patients toward shared decision-making.

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To analyze the current situation of cross-border access to clinical trials in the EU with an overview of stakeholders' real-life experience, and to identify the needs, challenges, and potential for facilitation of cross-border access. We employed a mixed methods design. Semi-structured interviews and an online survey were conducted with a wide range of stakeholders: patient representatives, investigators/physicians, policy and regulatory experts, academic and commercial sponsor representatives, ethics committee members.

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Background: Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the most common acute leukemia in adults and has an unacceptably low cure rate. In recent years, a number of new treatment strategies and compounds were developed for the treatment of AML. There were several randomized controlled clinical trials with the objective to improve patients' management and patients' outcome in AML.

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In CML, treatment-free remission (TFR) refers to having a stable deep molecular response without the need for ongoing tyrosine kinase inhibitor treatment. Whilst recommendations exist about the technical management of stopping and re-starting therapy, much is still unknown about the experiences of those considering and undertaking TFR. This study sought to obtain the patient perspective, identify areas of unmet needs and create recommendations for improvements.

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