Publications by authors named "Ravi Narra"

Background: Recent advancements in cellular therapies, particularly CAR-T and T cell engaging bispecific antibodies have significantly altered the therapeutic landscape for Multiple Myeloma. There are two U.S.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Primary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) is a rare, often fatal immune disorder characterized by an overactivation of the immune system. This disease is more common in children but has been known to occur in the occasional adult. The criteria for diagnosis in children do not correlate well with diagnosis in adults, and the numerous variations of presentation in adults often lead to a delay in diagnosis and treatment initiation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In patients with multiple myeloma (MM) not-eligible for autologous haematopoietic cell transplantation (autoHCT), a simplified frailty index (SFI) identifies frail patients at risk for poor outcomes, but data are limited for transplant-eligible patients. In this registry-based retrospective study, we used an adapted version of the SFI to determine the prevalence of frailty in patients ≥65 years of age with MM undergoing autoHCT. Out of 5563 patients, 37.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation (AHCT) has been a standard treatment for multiple myeloma (MM) for 40 years but is underused in racial and ethnic minority groups, despite the introduction of new therapies.* -
  • An institutional review of 1266 MM patients from 2012 to 2022 found overall AHCT utilization at 76%, but only 64.7% in non-Hispanic Black (NHB) patients compared to higher rates in other groups, highlighting significant racial disparities.* -
  • Key factors influencing AHCT utilization included patient age, health conditions, and caregiver support; while NHB utilization increased slightly over time, it still lagged behind non-Hispanic White
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Intensive chemotherapy (IC) combination with second- or third-generation TKI improves survival compared to non-IC with first-generation TKI. Allo-HCT was suggestive of improving RFS/OS after propensity score matching and multivariable analysis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In the last decade, novel agents such as BTK and BCL-2 inhibitors have revolutionized treatment of CLL/SLL, with clinical trials showing improved overall survival compared to chemotherapeutic agents. However, studies examining whether they have improved overall survival at the population level are lacking. We evaluated this by conducting a retrospective analysis of CLL/SLL patients registered in the National Cancer Institute's surveillance epidemiology and end results (SEER) database, analyzing overall survival (OS) in periods pre- and post-availability of novel agents, along with demographic information.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy and bispecific T-cell engagers (BsAb) have emerged as promising immunotherapeutic modalities in patients with relapsed and/or refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM). However, there is limited data on the safety and efficacy of CAR-T and BsAb therapies in MM patients with a prior history of allogeneic transplantation (allo-HCT). Thirty-three MM patients with prior allo-HCT received CAR-T (n = 24) or BsAb (n = 9) therapy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates infection risks associated with two types of bispecific antibodies (bsAb)—BCMA and GPRC5D—in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM), focusing on incidence and risk factors for infections during and after treatment.
  • Results show that BCMA bsAb therapy had a higher infection rate and a greater proportion of severe infections (grade ≥3) compared to GPRC5D treatment, with 58% of infections in the BCMA group classified as severe.
  • The findings suggest that patients receiving BCMA bsAb and GPRC5D combination therapies have a greater cumulative incidence of overall and severe infections compared to those receiving GPRC5D monotherapy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: In patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC) on cabozantinib, venous thromboembolism (VTE) management remains challenging due to limited safety data regarding direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) use in conjunction with cabozantinib. We investigated the safety of cabozantinib with different anticoagulants in patients with RCC.

Methods: In this retrospective multicenter study (9 sites), patients with advanced RCC were allocated into 4 groups: (1) cabozantinib without anticoagulation, cabozantinib with concomitant use of (2) DOACs, (3) low molecular weight heparin (LMWH), or (4) warfarin.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Waldenström macroglobulinemia (WM) is a rare B-cell lymphoproliferative malignancy. Autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation (auto-HCT) is considered in a subset of WM patients with relapsed disease. While registry data has shown a benefit for auto-HCT in relapsed WM, there is a paucity of data on outcomes of patients relapsing after auto-HCT.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Patients undergoing liver transplantation (LT) frequently receive platelet transfusion (PLT) to minimize their risk of hemorrhage. Alloimmunization to platelets may lead to refractoriness to PLT. Data on the implications of platelet alloimmunization in patients undergoing LT remain limited.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Patients with cancer frequently seek acute care as a result of complications of their disease and adverse effects of treatment. This acute care comes at high cost to the health care system and often results in suboptimal outcomes for patients and their caregivers. The Department of Health and Human Services has identified this as a gap in our care of patients with cancer and has called for quality-improvement efforts to reduce this acute care.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Several new treatment options have been approved for relapsed and/or refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM). In this systematic review, associations of the efficacy of each approved regimen with adverse events (AEs) and the total cost per cycle were compared with a Bayesian network meta-analysis (NMA) of phase 3 randomized controlled trials (RCTs).

Methods: Scopus, Cochrane, PubMed Publisher, and Web of Science were searched from January 1999 to July 2018 for phase 3 RCTs of regimens (approved by the US Food and Drug Administration) used in RRMM.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • * A study analyzed 60 patients with MM who relapsed after alloHCT, finding a median postrelapse survival of 1.8 years, with some key factors influencing survival rates.
  • * Predictors like cytogenetic risk, time to relapse after alloHCT, and the presence of acute graft-versus-host disease were identified as significant factors affecting survival post-relapse, emphasizing the potential of new treatments in managing relapsed MM.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (allo-HCT) is the only curative treatment modality for primary myelofibrosis (MF) and related myeloproliferative neoplasms. Older age at diagnosis and age-related comorbidities make most patients ineligible for allo-HCT, given concerns for nonrelapse mortality (NRM). Here we report the outcomes of 37 consecutive recipients of allo-HCT for MF performed at a single center between 2009 and 2018 with a standardized institutional protocol.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (allo-HCT) with reduced-intensity conditioning (RIC) is commonly performed as an inpatient procedure. The feasibility and outcomes of RIC allo-HCT in the outpatient setting is not known. We performed a single-center retrospective cohort study of patients aged ≥ 18years with hematologic malignancies who underwent RIC allo-HCT either in the inpatient or outpatient setting.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

HLA matching by allele-level genotyping is largely based on genetic similarity between a few exons that encode the antigen recognition domain (ARD) of the HLA protein. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) can identify HLA genetic polymorphisms in non-ARD-encoding exons, introns, and untranslated regions, but the impact of these polymorphisms on hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) outcome is unclear. We performed NGS-based sequencing of 11 HLA loci on a well-characterized retrospective cohort of 166 unrelated donor-recipient HCT pairs.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Some believe that tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) therapy is as close to perfect as it gets in oncologic therapy. Patients diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) are treated with a daily oral therapy, through which most achieve remission. TKI therapy is not associated with classic chemotherapy side effects, and most patients are able to resume their normal activities of daily living.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Synchronous cancers in patients with esophageal cancer are rare. We present a female nonsmoker with gastrointestinal symptoms that led to the diagnosis of HER-2/neu positive esophageal adenocarcinoma. During the staging workup, she was found to have a synchronous early-stage clear cell renal carcinoma.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF