Collaborating to Overcome Barriers to Novel Hematologic Cancer Therapies

In a conversation with CancerNetwork® ahead of the 2025 ICE-T (Immune Cell Effector Therapy) Congress, Suman Kambhampati, MD, spoke about the importance of breaking down barriers to treatment access with novel CAR T-cell therapies and bispecific antibodies among patients with hematologic malignancies, particularly among those residing in rural areas. He spoke in the context of a panel discussion he would attend titled “Access with CAR-T and Bispecifics.”

According to Kambhampati, meetings like the ICE-T Congress are critical for educating providers about the “rapidly changing field” for hematologic malignancy management. He stated that such sessions may help attendees become more knowledgeable about adopting novel therapeutic strategies and collaborating with others to reduce gaps in care.

Kambhampati is an associate professor of Medicine and director of KU-VA Integration and Infrastructure Development in the Division of Hematologic Malignancies and Cellular Therapeutics of the Department of Internal Medicine at The University of Kansas Cancer Center.

Transcript:

There’s going to be a special panel to primarily discuss access to these novel therapies, particularly CAR T cells and bispecific drugs. The University of Kansas is one of the leading centers pioneering work in these therapies, and we want to hear from the audience and learn from them about the challenges and barriers to adopt some of these novel therapeutics in remote sites or in practices where comprehensive care is not as readily available as in the university setting. It’s going to be a bilateral dialog; more than speaking, we want to hear from the audience about the practical barriers [for] patients, particularly in rural sites. One of the overarching goals of these meetings is to see how those barriers could be addressed in terms of expanding navigation, expanding telehealth, and being available in person at these remote sites. It’s going to be an interesting session. We have had these symposiums before, but the breakdown sessions will primarily be to have these dialogs and learn from each other.

The takeaway should be to try and attend these meetings because this is a rapidly changing field. These symposiums and regional meetings could be extremely helpful in educating ourselves about how the field is changing. What are the supportive care needs? What are the unaddressed barriers and unmet goals for these patients? How [do we] continue to collaborate to reduce the gaps in care? I am [quite]confident, at the end of these symposiums, that the attendees will have a much broader knowledge of these therapies and also be able to collaborate for immediate adoption of these treatments for their patients.